


The Rubik's Cube Will Be Solved In The End

by Reetal



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Father Hank, Geeky Chris, Holy Fowler, Humor, M/M, Markus is sick of this shit, Minor Elijah Kamski/Connor, Minor Markus/Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), RK900 is called Richard, Tina is still the best police officer, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name, badass RK900
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 12:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15995540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reetal/pseuds/Reetal
Summary: Jeffrey Fowler was a holy man. He cared about his colleagues and the atmosphere at the station, believing it could make a positive impact on the working process. Which was successfully fucked up by Reed and RK900. It's been 53 days since they started working together and they still couldn't get on the same page. Jeffrey Fowler takes the matter into his own hands. Indeed, a holy man!





	The Rubik's Cube Will Be Solved In The End

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a translation of [В финале кубик Рубика будет собран](https://ficbook.net/readfic/7122541) by риц.  
> This is my first time translating something into English and I really hope I did fine. Also I wanna warn you that English is not my first language, so if you see any mistakes please feel free to correct me.  
> This work just really got to me and I couldn't resist the urge. So here we are. One amazing piece of Reed900 for you :)
> 
>  **Author's Note**  
>  there are two songs mentioned in this work: anonymous and infra red by three days grace. by the way, almost every song by this band suits reed900 just great; most part of the fic was actually written to their music, so you can turn it on during the reading and get back to 2007 ;)

Jeffrey Fowler was a holy man.

He'd never drove against the lights, paid his taxes diligently, didn’t accept bribes, and had been a Detroit City Police Department captain for decades already.

He had always cared about his colleagues and the situation at the station because ever since his graduation he thought (he, assigned to be the prefect of their group, did not only check for attendance but carried responsibility on his wide, adamant shoulders) that great impact on the working process could be made by _the_ _atmosphere_.

It didn’t seem so from the first look as the captain was private and strict enough, but he valued and looked after his colleagues.  
As far as possible.

He had always stood up for his men, kept track of bonus and benefit payments, allowed sick leaves (only if his fellow workers were practically dying at their workplaces), monitored steady workload (sometimes closed his eyes or turned away), and kept everyone from burying themselves in paperwork (why bury yourself if you’re drowning in it).  
Jesus, he'd fought so hard with the administration for a few air conditioners, for only that much he could be painted on icons!

Fowler was a holy man, and if he were not canonized after his death it would be safe to sue catholicity.

His generous spirit and big heart was proved by, if anything, Lieutenant Anderson he’d tolerated for years, and now look, the man started to resemble a human again. Of course, it happened only because of the android assigned to him, but the captain did his share part in it as he was the one who assigned Connor as the man’s partner, so he could safely share some credit for returning the youngest lieutenant of Detroit Police (not anymore) back to his duty.

Captain Fowler had the patience of an angel (there should have been background music presented by singing cherubim).

But any patience was meant to come to an end sooner or later.  
And this end had a name of Detective Gavin fucking Reed. And RK900. The tandem for all death’s occasions (‘cause death was the only thing they could reduce to).

Captain Fowler had a great heart. Not health. You understand? Fowler wanted to retire soon with his head raised up proudly, not being carried out of the station feet-first.

Fowler was sitting at his desk, grim, not taking his eyes from Reed and RK900’s desks. He didn’t hear what they were arguing about (thank god), but had repeatedly cursed himself already for making the decision to seat the newly arrived android close to Gavin. And that had been his second mistake — because the first one he’d made when he put RK900 under Reed’s care.

He hadn’t made this decision by tossing Connor’s coin. He also refused to use an old method his dying grandfather shared with him on his deathbed — drinking at work was against the law.  
The captain had taken fundamental approach — he’d searched the base and found out the detective was the only officer at the station who hadn't had a shoulder to lean on, a back to cover him, and a second head (two heads are better than one). In this case it was more like a processor, but let’s not specify ( _let’s get without let’s_ , his wise grandfather used to say).

Fowler, worth recalling, kept an eye for his people’s safety during investigations. Gavin, of course, had been one of the best officers for a long time, but you never know. One cannot be too–

Anyway, he meant the best.  
You know the rest.

Fowler sat back in his chair, tired, and turned his eye at the corner of his office where a ficus was blocking the sight of the desks of those two– oh, all his being opposed to even think about them (he should have watered the ficus, though).  
He’d been thinking for some time already to assign them to different ~~corners~~ partners but they had the best efficiency for two months in a row, pushing aside Anderson and RK800. If not for multiply complains and oppressiveness at the station Fowler would have let them go to hell long time ago.

But for the captain, worth recalling, the atmosphere stood not at the last place. Efficiency stood at the second.

Captain Fowler found himself in a difficult situation.

“Captain?”  
The speed of sound equals more than three hundred meters per second, so he heard “–ticooker, touch my phone again with your plastic–”, “I don’t have to touch your phone if you do not have one”, “get your hands off it!!” right as the door opened.  
Fowler was a holy man as his service weapon _still_ remained in his desk drawer.  
“We have questions considering our recent case. You’re not busy, are you?” And before Fowler could answer Connor stepped forward, standing right in front of him. Anderson came in after him, closing the door.

Fowler straightened and put his elbows on the desk. And paused.  
“We’ll deal with your case later.” He stopped Connor who faltered at once. “You two had troubles finding a common ground, right?”

“Jeffrey, why are you suddenly so interested in our common ground?” Hank who was blocking sight of the ficus and the-desk-at-which-better-not-to-look frowned, puzzled.

“Because you were the one throwing hysterics on me to send Connor away, and you were the one whining how hard it was to work with an android, and you were the one pitching me a line about how you hated them!”  
The captain’s patience of an angel jumped aboard a leaving train that, as a whistle sounded, took off to a journey round the world (it refused to stream a handkerchief).

“All right, I got it, just calm down.” Hank raised his hands placatingly, exchanging glances with Connor. “What’s the problem?”

“Captain Fowler is concerned about Detective Reed and RK900 who, after 53 days of collaborative work, failed to come to agreement.”

The captain would've used less delicate words but ‘concerned’ worked, too, although it didn’t express all that range of emotions he was experiencing (those two were pushing him over the edge).

“Oh, well, you, eh… try drinking some sedatives. Or something stronger.”

“Lieutenant,” Connor’s voice sounded reproachful, “you should never advise anyone to drink something stronger.”

“What the hell was that, Connor?!”

“Shut up both of you! Don’t make me pull apart you, too!” Fowler adjusted his tie (he was a religious man so he put any thoughts about hanging himself at the back of his mind). “Now give me a few ways to reconcile those morons!” Connor and Hank opened their mouths at the same time. “That don’t include firing Reed and sending RK900 back to CyberLife.”

And closed.  
There was a pause.

“Perhaps,” Connor began carefully when silence became uncomfortable, “they should discuss their problems? Conduct a training.”

“A sparring.”

“No, Lieutenant, a training.”

“That would lead to a sparring,” Hank snorted. “Those two can’t be contained in one room since even installed recently air conditioners are unable to lower the temperatures boiling between them. And it’s April, imagine what it will be like at summer.”

“Weather forecast says it will be a cold summer this year.”

“Do you respect yourself?”

The LED on Connor’s temple flashed.  
“I’m sorry I don’t understand why you would ask me this question.”

Hank sighed heavily, pointing at the window, and said with a voice of a veteran fighter against bad weather, “If you do never trust weather forecasts.”

“Sorry to interrupt your absorbing discussion but the two idiots behind your backs are preparing to make a sacrifice!”

“Who are they going to sacrifice?” Connor asked and Hank covered his face with his hand.

“Me!!” Fowler slammed his desk, making the two police officers flinch and papers that had been collected all morning fly across the desk.

“Captain Fowler, they should speak, however. Or…” Connor put a finger to his mouth, “we could seat them in front of each other and give them–”

“Service weapons?” Hank smirked and then put a serious expression as a vein on the temple of Jeffrey who was trying to put together scattered papers began to pulse.

“A piece of paper and a pen to write what they dislike about each other and what they like.”

“Well, the latter will clearly be difficult.”

Fowler valued favorable working environment and efficiency, so for the safety of those he could agree to anything (except service weapons).

Indeed, Jeffrey Fowler was a holy man.

* * *

“What?!” Gavin exclaimed, standing in front of the captain’s desk.  
He was a fight-seasoned police officer, had taken part in quite a few shoot-outs and got away in one piece every time, but —  
“To write five scores? Are you kidding, Captain?”

“Shut your mouth! Or you’d rather put your badge on my desk, huh?!” Sweat started to transpire on his forehead.

Richard was standing quietly one meter away from Gavin, steering clear, not showing he was there in any way.

“What do we even need it for, Captain? We have a load of unsolved cases, everyone’s up, and you want me to write in a column what I dislike about… this?” Pointed with his thumb at Richard who didn’t move a muscle.

“I’m fed up with your fights. And with both of you.” Fowler gave them a heavy like the Empire State Building glance. “It’s been seven weeks, could’ve get used to each other by now.”

“Well, we achieved a symbiotic relationship. We’re best friends.”

“You promised to sell me on the black market yesterday, Detective,” Richard put in and Gavin remembered that yes, he'd wanted to do that. He still wanted. The piece of plastic was neither useful (well, all right, sometimes the walking lab could be useful) nor quiet (and RK900 was never quiet as he had never been able _to shut up when needed_ — for example, _now_ ).

“Did you catch some virus or what? Never happened. You should try watching less porn at your workplace.”

“First, I don’t watch porn, unlike you, Detective; second, I can replay the dialog word for word since my memory never fails.”

Gavin clenched his hand into a fist. And unclenched it as he saw Fowler’s expression — like his favorite football team not only lost comprehensively but also got under a rock fall.

Would’ve been better if Richard did.

“One more word and you will leave the station right through the window. Got it?”  
And the captain’s voice was like a rolling thunder. At that moment Gavin realized it thundered for him.  
“Now you will go to your desks, take a piece of paper and write what I said, and then you will return it to me like grown up–” Fowler looked at Richard. “Like grown-ups,” he said again and went back to his business. “Get out.”

Gavin was the first to storm out of the captain’s office, as black as night, making his way to his desk through Connor and Hank speaking peacefully. And then he stopped. He had a gut feeling that when these two walked out of Fowler’s office they were amused clearly not by their investigation. After all, the idea of writing down five positive and negative features you dislike about your partner (so fucked up!) hadn’t gone down by Jacob’s ladder right to the captain’s office, illuminating him with virtuous light.

So he turned to them and slammed the lieutenant’s desk.  
“What did you two say to Fowler?!” Gavin tried to be quiet but the situation and his emotional state didn’t dispose him to a friendly conversation by a cup of jasmine tea at sunset at the top of the Grand Canyon.  
Richard standing behind him like a silent shadow seemed to express solidarity.

“What’s wrong, Reed? Gonna share some gossips?” Hank sat back in his chair while Connor at his own desk stared at the terminal that seemed to display data related to an investigation of illegal thirium sale on the black market; he casted awkward glances at Richard from time to time.

“Gonna smash your face.”

“Detective Reed.” A wide palm lay at Gavin’s shoulder, making him flinch. “Let’s move to our desks.”

“Don’t touch me with your–”

“Hey, Jeffrey!” Hank waved to the captain raising.

Gavin cursed Fowler’s office emplacement. He had the whole station in his sight.  
Just like all-seeing Eye of Sauron.  
All-seeing Eye of Jeffrey.

Gavin shook off the toaster’s hand and headed to his desk, although couldn’t resist an urge to kick a chair near douche-Anderson’s desk.  
Gavin always had the final word, damn you.

He dropped into his chair, got a clear sheet of paper from the ream, took a pen, and  
found himself lost completely.  
What was he supposed to write? Gavin, nearly panicking, looked at the blank sheet and scratched his chin nervously. He had never been fond of this kind of shit. His psychoanalyst had repeatedly advised Reed to go over his fits of anger with a piece of paper and a pen, bursting all his worries on it (he’d never used such a shitty advise because a) he didn’t need any advises, b) least of all shitty advises).

No kidding, Gavin didn’t know what to write. Five scores he liked about… Richard? Seriously? Reed could’ve assumed Fowler was high if he used. But he didn’t use. Reed squinted at the captain. The man looked well.  
Then he looked at the android. He was lounging in his chair (Connor 2.0? Yeah, and Gavin was a nobleman from South Carolina) with his hand frozen over the sheet of paper. And wasn’t moving.  
Ha.

“What, your gearwheels got rusty? I should take you to a tech.”

“I am thinking about what to write. You should, too; that way you will get it done right by the end of the day.” Richard turned to him, giving him a… look. And hell, Gavin hated it because he just _couldn’t_ get what the toaster was thinking about.  
Sometimes Reed thought RK900 was designed not for police duty but for great espionage as it was impossible to say what he was planning by his face. To play a game of darts? To commit genocide?  
“I have to admit I’m lost. Captain Fowler asked to write a few scores I dislike about you. Five is not enough.”

“Fuck you, toaster! I’m going to write a fucking ode about you!”

“I doubt you can manage a poetic text.”

All right, let’s start here.  
Gavin loved his job.

He’d been the best at his class, graduated with honors (almost), solved any cases assigned to him, never slacked off (all right, sometimes), and yes, he was proud to work at the police. But there were things in his job that pissed him off more than shopping lines (Gavin just _hated_ lines).

Androids and the multicooker assigned to him pissed him off. Means Richard was unlucky enough to combine two scores at the same time.  
Gavin also hated donuts, green tea, and yes, the lines (but that’s beside the point).

You should give credits to Captain Fowler: he informed Gavin an android had been assigned to him one day before the doomsday. Of course, it didn’t make it easier, but at least he had time to prepare:

_“My name is Richard, I’m the android–“_  
_“Go fuck yourself.”_  
_“–sent by CyberLife.”_  
He didn’t, obviously, fuck himself.

At that ill-fated day Gavin was slouching in his chair, solving a Rubik’s Cube (he had read somewhere it settled nerves and overall was a pretty entertaining shit), when he decided to grab himself a coffee from the cafeteria. Richard (what a fucking joke of a name, who the hell even came up with it) was already sitting at the desk prepared for him at the opposite side.

When he came back the Rubik’s Cube was sitting at his desk, solved, blinding him with its white face.  
You know, Gavin was, after all, a man of honor. And somewhere inside him there was something kind and light. He, to be honest, could forgive a lot of things.  
But not the solved Rubik’s Cube he had been sweating away at for two weeks (Gavin defiantly scrambled it and put it at the far corner of his desk).

It was then when Gavin realized he got a scumbag instead of a partner.  
In what he became certain later on.

Richard turned out to be insolent, sharp-tongued, spouting out information jackass. And that jackass came for Gavin’s sinful soul. Perhaps he stole a loaf of bread from a lame old lady at the market in his past life (if these exist at all).  
Karma’s a bitch, Gavin.

Gavin didn’t give a shit about karma, but you know… humans are amazing creatures because they can get used to absolutely anything. Accommodate. Adapt. Especially when there is no other choice. It didn’t seem possible to either hand Richard over to someone else or send him back to CyberLife (Fowler made it clear when refused to listen to Reed’s wrangling and showed him the door before he could make a fuss); well, he could also arm himself with a pipe or a gun and take the android to pieces all by himself but: _I’m an expensive model, Detective Reed. And you value your life, don’t you?_  
Richard’s arguments were hard to argue with.

So yeah. Gavin got used to him. Of course it wasn’t easy for him (bottles of beer at weekends were involved as well).

He was, like… fine with this? Yes, the kettle was annoying, pissed him off and deserved to be sold for scrap, but… he got used to it? Meaning… he was okay with it? Yeah, he was ready to admit it while standing on a scaffold — he saw no problem in their, err, relationship (on a scaffold, ladies and gentlemen, not at the police station, not in front of Fowler, and not, god save us, in front of _Richard_ ).

After all, Gavin wasn’t an asshole. He had some issues with anger and social interactions but it didn’t mean he was a complete dick (unlike RK900, that’s it).

Gavin’s personality wasn’t all honey; more like a chili with stale vinegar, diluted with acid and flavored with Tabasco. And, you have to give him credit, he was aware of that. That’s why Richard (fucking Richard) who had been annoying him for seven weeks and was such a pain in the ass, who ignored him showing off and accepted all that shit he carried inside him (more like reflected it and added his own shit in the mix) was an ide– an idea– ahem. Not the most sickening partner for him of all he could get.  
If he’d gotten Connor, for example, Gavin would’ve spent nights by Fowler’s office, covering with his jacket, just for Connor to get assigned to someone else. And the threat of turning in his badge wouldn’t have stopped him.

That being said, Gavin saw no point in all this psychological crap designed to build partner relationship. Yes, they didn’t live together like Hank and his-new-son-Connor did (Gavin shuddered), didn’t watch football together like Tina and Jim did, and didn’t drink together like Chris and Bruce did (it would have been problematic anyway since the only thing Richard could drink was Reed’s blood), but they _hadn’t killed_ each other yet, and that said a lot!

Gavin looked at the blank white sheet.  
_Write five scores you dislike about each other and five scores you li– don’t dislike, and bring it to me. We’ll think what to do about you,_ he remembered the captain’s words.  
He that argues with enraged Fowler must not appear at the station, and Gavin, worth recalling, loved his job.

Gavin tapped his pen on his desk. All he could write looked like a swearing list.  
Richard, on the other hand, was writing something calligraphically already. Damned tin can! Not that Reed was interested in his writings but… he levered himself up a bit, looking behind the terminal, and –  
Richard moved his sheet aside, hiding it from Gavin.

You what?

“Are you fucking–”

“Captain Fowler told to show this to him. Not to you.” And Richard glared at him the way Gavin instantly forgot what he meant to say.  
You know, the I-slaughter-kittens-and-feed-them-to-vegetarians glare did come in handy during interrogations. Still, Gavin preferred not to feel it on himself once more.

Gavin straightened and came back to where he started. To swearing.

Five minutes later there was as much as five words in explicit language. Jesus, Fowler would kill him for this. And the microwave was sitting with its arms folded on its chest, watching Gavin’s miserable attempts to make adequate arguments and clearly feeling its superiority over the flash bag.

“Richard,” a young, rather short blond girl came to the desk – the recently transferred from another station police officer (Gavin had no luck remembering her name), “could you help me with my terminal?”  
And Richard smiled friendly (friendly, for fuck’s sake! it could do it! Gavin nearly had an epileptic seizure) and headed to her desk. Although stopped, grabbed his sheet and left, smirking to Gavin (what a dickhead!).

Gavin crumpled his sheet, threw it in the trashcan and got a new one.

Ten long minutes later, which he spent in company of Self-Hatred beast and his friend Frustration, the detective stood up from his desk. Richard still hadn’t returned, as hadn’t the sheet with scores that he took right to Fowler’s office, ignoring waves of anger compared by the sizes with tsunami casted his way.

Fowler nearly ran from his office, holding his phone with his ear.

“Captain, here’s…” Gavin waved the sheet in front of the captain’s face.

“Put it on my desk, I'll read it when I’m back.”

Gavin snorted (as if he was the one needed this) and entered the office. He dropped his sheet on the desk, watching it fell smoothly to a sheaf of paper, as he saw something disturbingly familiar and braced himself up.  
Not that he knew what Richard’s handwriting looked like (what handwriting are we even talking about, CyberLife Sans it was) but two straight columns including five numbers each gave the idea.

Gavin casted a glance at the station buzzing with work (Chris was playing an online video game, poor fella, all sweating with effort; Connor there wasn’t taking his eyes off his phone — what did he even need a phone for, he was a fucking robot with antennas on his head). He skillfully sneaked Richard’s sheet, unnoticed by any curious eyes.

_1\. Uncontrolled anger;_  
The sheet crunched mournfully in his clenched fingers.  
_2\. Excessive rudeness;_  
Huh, seriously? Yes, he told him to fuck himself when they first met, but that proved nothing.  
_3\. Stubbornness;_  
Yeah, you should’ve fucking met yourself before writing this.  
_4\. Sense of humor;_  
And that one hurt his ego.  
“Fucking multicooker, when I joke about selling you for scrap I’m being serious.”  
_5._

The door opened with a squeak.

“You lost, Reed? The desk is right in front of you.” Captain Fowler entered his office with a box of donuts delivered to the police station’s doors. Gavin made a face instantly at the sickening smell.

“Y-yes, Captain, coming.” Gavin adjusted the sheaf, hiding his list that was struck out multiple times under Richard’s, and tried to withdraw fast, as:

“Nonetheless, Reed.”  
Not fast enough.  
“Try not to put up a fight at work.” Fowler put the box on his desk and headed to the sweltering ficus with a bottle of water in his hand. “I realize it’s hard for you not to shoot each other but keep your personal feelings to yourselves.”

Reed could’ve said a lot about _keeping his personal feelings to himself_ because  
hey  
have you ever seen Richard?

He had more chances with building a time machine and preventing the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Ladies and gentlemen, it was like creating an eternal engine, finding a job in your degree field, and reading household appliances instructions properly — to put it simple, it was hardly manageable.

When Gavin was back at his workplace and saw Richard sitting at his desk, the five scores arose in his mind in red letters, nearly gleaming in the spotlight.  
Oh, he was gonna regret this, but —  
Gavin pushed his chair with his elbow, making the android’s fingers slip from the panel.

Richard stood up.  
The sweltering ficus now also suffered from the fury of never gotten to water it Captain Fowler.

* * *

“What the hell, Captain?! We have the best efficiency at the station, why do we have to hang out in _that_ archive?!”  
Gavin was standing in front of Fowler’s desk, shaking with anger. His brow was furrowed, hands clenched into fists, while Richard’s face was expressing such calmness like he was in the Garden of Eden instead of the station before the captain who nervously rubbed his nose.

“Did I tell you not to put up fights at work?”

Reed casted a glance at Richard whose LED never even flashed once for the sake of decency (where decency was and where RK900 was). While it was him who nearly punched him in the eye the day before (of course it was after Gavin tried to punch him in his fucking ceramic teeth, but that was after Richard put Gavin's hand behind his back, but! before that, of course, Gavin pushed his chair on purpose… anyway, the action turned out long and was only traceable with CCTV cameras that had been promised to be installed for the third year already but never got there because of financial lacking).

“No, Captain, you didn’t.” Richard was standing with his hands behind his back. “You just asked to–”

“To the archive! Both! Now!”

Fowler was still a holy man since he didn’t throw a stapler at their retreating backs. He deserved a liturgy in his honor as he ignored Reed cursing everyone and everything (he could have sworn before gods, RK900 expressed silent consent with his partner).  
The captain wasn’t born this morning and saw a lot of different shit in his life (he lived through the dubstep era and emo culture) so he realized it right after the first time speaking with the new android — his quiet days after the end of the deviant march had come to an end.  
And he hadn’t even had time to go to vacation.

Captain Fowler deserved to be sainted at least because he was a great martyr.

Captain Fowler who took a bottle of water the previous day to water the longsuffering plant spilled it all as the brawl starting (what number of those already…) filled his eyes with anger.

Fowler was one step away from sending the one back to CyberLife and the other home (forever). But he still was a holy man as he _didn’t do this_. He valued all his officers (and hated paperwork, and firing a detective and decommissioning an advanced android only led to it) so he decided to give them one last chance.

Working as a team, away from other people always encouraged solving any problem — he’d heard that back at the academy from a friend who got a degree in psychology and now lived on the street at the north side of the city. Nothing but a bright side: they wouldn’t plague anyone with their presence, would have some time alone, maybe talk to each other, discuss all issues of their partner relationship… The sheets with five scores ended up in the trashcan, shredded to pieces (because the patience took off for a journey round the world, remember?).

If a halo didn’t appear over Jeffrey Fowler’s head in a short time, what was this for?

* * *

Reed was furious.  
The last thing he wanted to do now was sorting papers. He was created for mental (a detective, after all) and physical (in good shape) activity but not for clerk work.  
So what the fuck.

He left open the possibility that fortune turned its back to him (since the day he was born).

Gavin went to a coffee machine to settle his jaded nerves and prepare mentally for being in the archive (the last time he visited that devil forsaken blazes, folders piled in a hurry nearly fell on him).

There were two archives at the Detroit Police Department — the first one where Conno– ahem, he preferred not to think about it (his wounded pride still boiled mad when Hank’s android came in sight); and the second one located at the floor -1 at the opposite side of the station. That was where Fowler ~~kicked~~ sent them.  
To take in the disaster scale: not only ventilation there worked at half power and lights went dark but also some mystical shit happened from time to time — something unearthly dropped documents on the floor. There were legends among colleagues that the spirit of the first captain of the Central Station who died at his workplace lived in the archive.

Gavin believed it was about time to demolish the archive and expand the interrogation room and send the piles of papers to recycling; environmentalists would line up and run along with flourish and bright posters in hands to a nearest plant. Only before the green march all data needed to be transferred to digital format, starting from 2000s when cybernation gained the momentum.  
The momentum had been gained but tons of papers still remained locked forever under electronic lock in their tomb.

Need for coffee increased.  
Fortune definitely didn’t like him since the first one he met at the entrance to the cafeteria was Connor.

Gavin would’ve walked past him, pushing his shoulder just out of habit, but stopped and stared at his blue jumper.  
“Did you take your clothes off a shop window dummy on your way to work?”

Connor took his eyes off the material he was reading on his tablet and examined himself from head to toe. This deviant android looked unusual without his gray company jacket and a white shirt with a tie. Gavin didn’t want to admit it but he looked more and more… human?  
Gavin felt sick. He walked around Connor, approaching the coffee machine.

“Captain Fowler asked me to take some of your and RK900’s cases until you finish cleaning the archive.”

Reed’s finger flinched and pushed the espresso button instead of the usual cappuccino.  
“And did he ask you to go fuck yourself?”

“That’s an order, Detective Reed,” Connor shrugged (where did he pick all that up, he was a cardboard robot two month ago, even walked like a plastic Ken doll).

“Give it to me.” Gavin snatched the tablet from Connor’s hands to enter his data and open the access to the material.  
_His_ material.

He would definitely make sure a couple of racks in the archive fall over on Richard. It would be fine, there were two months Gavin eked out a living when started to live on his own, he was no stranger to it. And the expensive Cyber-fucking-Life model was not so expensive anyway, only three times higher than his monthly payment.  
Such mental satisfaction, though.

A news presenter spoke briefly about an interview the android representative Markus gave to a journalist from CTN TV. The journalist in his sum up spoke negatively about the interviewee’s position over androids and their place in modern, progressive society, at what Markus objected and called him incompetent as he couldn’t separate his personal feelings from work process. The discussion, by the presenter’s words, was intense.

Richard was staying by the desk of the transferred officer he helped the previous day with her terminal settings (or whatever) and… talked to her _nicely_ (can this word even stay in one sentence with RK900?). Gavin would’ve choked on his coffee if the coffee machine wasn’t shaking at this moment, making it.

Detective Reed wasn’t an outsider when things came to relationships and had a 20/20 vision (he attended medical examinations regularly) so it wasn’t hard to see the interest to his, for Christ’s sake, partner wasn’t limited by work only — the girl’s eyes shined to the point it was enough to lighten whole Detroit city at winter night.  
Gavin made a face. They lived in twenty-first century, when the word _Tolerance_ was meant to be written with a capital _T_ (some wrote the whole word in capitals).  
But.  
Everything had to have a limit.

Gavin wasn’t a man of principle but he wasn’t going to betray his way of thinking considering androids (who he had despised for the last five or so years of his life) just like that. And he didn’t care about all those articles invading the internet where androids were scientifically considered as something more than just machines for washing dishes and cutting bushes.  
But still.  
Gavin looked at Richard. Seriously? Him ( _this_ )?

“Detective Reed, are you finished?” Connor asked, noticing him paused.

Gavin shoved him the tablet and turned to a cupboard to put four spoonful of sugar in his cup (he hated donuts but drank liters of sweet coffee and devoured a pack of sugar provided for the whole station pretty much all by himself).  
He would never fall so low to build a relationship with an android.

Remember Gavin compared the archive with blazes? Well, blazes were a light version. A demo. A preview.  
Because.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell is this?! Has anyone come here for the last five years?! Fuck, my leg! Who puts boxes right in the middle?! Shit, is this a cobweb?! Shit, it’s a cobweb!”

A giant cobweb indeed connected two dusty racks full of papers and folders.

“Multicooker, don’t bend down, let this shit stick to your face!”

“Detective Reed, I will wind the cobweb on my hand and put it in your mouth.”

“I’ll fucking stick it up your ass!”

Richard scanned the place for a switch and, after finding one on the wall, put the lights on. It took a few seconds for bulbs to light up next but one, lightening the archive that looked more like a cave in the depth of Siberian mountains.

“We’re fucked,” Gavin gave his verdict, examining the place with his eyes wide open; there were six high racks heaped with scrap paper (obviously accumulated since the foundation of the police department — since 1865). A few boxes stuffed with folders were scattered across all the archive; one of those held a reeling rack on the left. At the far side there was a big cabinet with broken doors and a leg that was supported by a fat folder with cases involving swindling for 2024 put under it — the pride of this installation. “We’re fucked,” Gavin said again.  
A blinking light bulb above their heads faded.

You know, places like this have some sort of… romantic in it? All those dusty notes left by police officers (some of them might rest in their graves already), solved notable cases hiding priceless experience, an old smell of faded paper or printer ink…

Gavin didn’t give a shit.  
But he did give a shit that cleaning up this trash could take weeks.  
Oh, Fowler would wake up one day in the middle of the night and realize one valuable, extremely important detective hadn’t shown up at work for years. He would run in his terry robe dressed over his sleepwear, forgetting to put on his warm plaid slippers, open the door to the archive with his shaking hands and grasp his heart.  
Because instead of the valuable detective he would meet a skeleton covered in cobweb.

“Detective Reed, stop staring in front of you and get to work.” Richard who had already gone upstairs and got wet wipers shoved one to Gavin standing still and went to a rack.

Gavin clenched the wiper in his hands.  
Gavin was cursed.

“I shall remind you it’s your fault we got here, Detective Reed,” Richard said four (or five? time at the archive seemed to freeze at the beginning of the previous century) long hours later, standing near one of the racks; he finally finished dusting off papers, making this medieval vault seem more like an archive (if looking from the distance and not scrutinizing).

“Oh yeah, piece of plastic, and the fact that you’ve been pissing the fuck off me for god knows how long has nothing to do with it.”

Gavin didn’t deny his fault (he was a big boy after all, and could deal with consequences of his actions) but the freaking toaster had no right to blame him alone! Gavin really wanted to throw the dusty wiper at the android who snorted disdainfully but he didn’t do it.  
He was a clever boy who learned from his mistakes.

He did pay a visit to Fowler after lunch, though.  
Captain Fowler may never had gotten a degree in psychology but he had listened an entire course about psychological connections in society, never missing a class. So had Gavin but he didn’t make use of this knowledge in his life.

Fowler, dusting off leaves of the finally watered ficus, remained uncompromised.

Reed walked out of the captain’s office with such hangdog expression the officer he met on his way moved backwards and hurriedly went round him, nearly knocking down a lamp on one of the desks.

“Fuck,” Chris muttered from the side, losing another raid and rubbing the back of his neck nervously.  
Gavin dropped online video games when he was sixteen, since most of those had joined the dark side, draining money from poor kids, but he shared Chris’s feelings.  
Indeed. Fuck.  
Before going back to the archive Gavin stood in front of the station, breathing smoke and settling remained nerves.

Gavin stormed into the archive and slammed the door that creaked mournfully.  
“Fowler said until all here is sorted,” he kicked one of the racks, making a few folders that were lined up in accordance with data in them reel and then fall to the floor with thundering knock, causing a cloud of dust compared with the one from a smoke grenade, “no one is getting out of here.” Gavin looked at scowling Richard not taking his eye from the fallen folders. “I’ll get them, I’ll get them!”

Gavin loved his job.  
This was what he told himself while sitting on the floor and sorting a heap of documents for 2028.

You know, he would’ve rather written those five scores again than breathed an ancient dust from the far corner where a spider family lived peacefully once more. Gavin remembered the android did actually write something good about him but he’d never got the chance to read it because of the captain’s return. Knowing the toaster (and Gavin knew it extremely well) it could’ve came up with something that would make your eyes not just pop out but leave your face tactfully without leaving a note.  
Gavin glanced at Richard standing with his back straight and looking over folders signed by year. It wasn’t beyond him.

A few days spent at the archive later he nearly went to Fowler again but first, his pride didn’t let him and second, Richard was waiting for him by the archive doors.

Fowler’s plan had failed — the kettle still annoyed him. Except did it two times more often, not giving Reed a chance to take a break from its company, being in his face all the time (at the station he could stare at his terminal, or his phone, or his Rubik’s Cube, or go to the cafeteria). And here he had to stay, looking at this plastic (silent plastic, what made it a bit less annoying) invading his personal space over and over.

There were… not much things to do at the archive? There was no signal, no internet; to turn on the music and share it with RK900 — no, thank you, he would only glance at him disdainfully and say just what he thought about the detective’s music taste. So sometimes, when boredom got him and smashed the walls built by Gavin’s hard-working nature he read some cases that seemed to be interesting judging by their names.  
And no one had the right to judge him — try working four days in a row in a dim place with no fresh air while having not the best company and then speak.  
So yes, Gavin deserved anything but to be judged (he deserved a cold bottle of beer and a warm blanket).

That was how he knew the first cases involving deviants emerged long ago, in 2032, but were covered up carefully. Were covered up so well even Gavin who by nature loved to snoop around had no clue.

“Detective, how many times do I have to tell you not to get distracted?” Richard appeared beside him, beaconing with his blue LED and holding a few dusty folders with screaming titles _mass murders_. Combined with Richard himself it seemed pretty menacing.

“How many times do I have to tell you to fuck off?” Gavin didn’t take his eyes off another deviant case, leaning his back against a rack. “Hey, piece of plastic, did you know deviancy appeared before the last year?”

“This data is not in my base.” And added a few seconds later with his eyes glowing in the dim light, “Tell me to fuck off again and you will be cleaning the floor from your blood.”

Gavin gritted his teeth.  
Fucking robots. Fucking company.  
And clapped the case right in Richard’s face. Richard returned the favor by throwing a good layer of dust from the folders on him.

“As far as I know, CyberLife tried to hide all data regarding deviancy for as long as possible.” Richard went to the rack across him, putting away the folders now brushed from the dust to loud sounds of sneezing and swearing. “The police didn’t share this information specifically because of this.”

“So those bastards knew everything?” Gavin tried to clean his black T-shirt and dreamed about leaving the android to die under these racks. “That this shit was happening?”

“This is business, Detective Reed.”

“There’s still one thing I can’t figure out.” Reed stood next to him to take another case. “Why the hell haven’t you become a deviant yet? All of yours, well… were happy to join that new Jericho in the city center and that… what’s his name… Markus.”

Gavin wasn’t the tallest man at the station as he was but under Richard’s venomous glance (he didn’t see it but it was enough just _feeling_ it) he felt like a snail. A microbe. An atom.

“I will never become a deviant, Detective Reed,” his voice was full of steel, sending shivers down Gavin’s spine. “There is nothing more disgraceful than becoming a deviant.”

Gavin’s self-preservation instinct shouted, _don’t say anything, Gavin, it will eat you up!_  
His desire to find out for himself whispered, _go on, Gavin, ask away!_

“Why? This rainbow circle on your temple is so precious to you? Well, it doesn’t bother Connor, he walks with it everywhere, beaming.”

Richard sighed. Deeply, like it could help settling the blue blood boiling in his wires.

“Feelings they simulate interfere with work process and prevent them from accomplishing the tasks they were designed for.”

The self-preservation instinct yelled, _shut your mouth, Gavin!_  
The desire to find out for himself pleaded, _ask him, Gavin!_

“And what about personality? Much praised free will?”

“Detective Reed, I have enough free will to not knock these racks over on you and leave you to die under them.”  
Wait a minute! That was Gavin’s plan, so he was free to sue him for copyright violation.  
“I can take any action I might consider top-priority at the moment based on my own calculations. Except for orders that come directly from the police department or CyberLife.”

The self-preservation instinct begged, _don’t do this, Gavin!_  
The desire to find out for himself echoed, _stop, Gavin!_

“That’s why you ignore Connor? I don’t give a fuck about Connor but I still remember his injured look when you cut out all his attempts to make contact with you.”  
Connor indeed was hard to look at the whole week. Gavin didn’t know what he felt in his… heart (is it even appropriate to speak like that about androids?) when he saw the upgraded version of his model, and the LED flashed yellow for a fleeting second didn’t say much to him. Gavin had a gut feeling, though, that at the presence of RK900 Connor felt as uncomfortable as an African in the north of Canada did.

Richard turned to the detective, folding his arms on his chest and leaning against a rack with his shoulder.  
“Why are you showing such interest in my… personality, Detective? Could it be that Captain Fowler’s plan has worked after all and you decided to stop being such a jerk?”

“If anyone should stop being a jerk it’s you.” He jabbed his finger at the android’s chest, but put it out of harm’s way under his heavy look. “I don’t give a shit about you to ask you anything.”

“Yes,” Richard answered, staring at the back of the detective who turned away. “I don’t want to have anything to do with those who are unable to fulfil the function built in them.”

You could congratulate Gavin since he got the most stubborn, insolent, and _arrogant_ android ever created by CyberLife (luckily he was the one like that in the whole world, not 200,000 units planned originally).

Applause?  
Applause.

The next day, at lunchtime, Gavin went upstairs (like going to heaven through purgatory) and realized as he came to his desk that he forgot his lunch. At home.  
“For fuck’s sake.”

“Gavin.” Tina came to the upset detective. “You know that Captain Fowler enforces penalties for swearing at workplace starting next week? The directive should be put on sight today.”

“For fuck’s sake.”  
No, Gavin didn’t know. If a nuclear war broke out, he would’ve found out only when walked outside (if walked).  
At this rate, he would become completely wild among papers and folders, overgrown with his hair like that cousin from the old Addams Family, and forget verbal language.  
“Why did he decide to enforce it, anyway?” Gavin leaned against his desk, resting his hands on it and striking his little finger against the forgotten Rubik’s Cube that he sent to the far end of the desk with a flick. “He himself can shout down the whole department in his office.”

Tina shrugged.  
She was the only officer at the station Gavin managed to, well… get across to? He was terrible at building social contacts with his colleagues. He was terrible at any social interactions.

“How things are going on at the archive? You and Richard both are there to stay?”

Him and Richard _both_.  
Not just him and Richard. Not him and the dickhead. But him and Richard both.  
Their partner relationship moved to a new level, great. Fowler could set off fireworks and give a banquet on this occasion.  
At which Gavin wouldn’t come because he would be drowning in papers.

“Till the end of time. Fuck, I’ve left my lunch at home. Going to the store, you need anything?”  
Gavin had communication issues but he did care about people he actually managed to get along with. He was as far from Fowler in this as from the Moon, though (a holy man, after all).

“No, I’ve had my lunch already. But you better take an umbrella, it’s about to rain.”  
Gavin didn’t have time to say anything as a classic black umbrella was handed to him.  
“Give it back tomorrow then, okay? I’m leaving in thirty minutes.”

“Err,” Gavin scratched the back of his neck and straightened up, “if it’s raining you gonna get–“

Tina shook her head, interrupting surprised Reed. “Someone will pick me up.”

Gavin raised an eyebrow, noticing her embarrassment, but didn’t comment on it.

Reed walked out of the station and ran onto Fowler immediately.  
“Where are you going, Reed?”

“To the store.”

“Alone?”  
Fowler stood in the way, blocking it.

“Alone.”  
Gavin stopped, glancing suspiciously at scowling Fowler. The only thing missing here was western cowboy music and the clock to count down to high noon.

“Wrong answer, Reed.”  
Wait, no. Was he gonna… was he going to…

“No, it’s not, Captain.” Gavin narrowed his eyes.

“How many partners do you have?”  
No, please don’t…

“One,” Gavin admitted reluctantly.

“And what is one plus one?”  
Shit.

“Come on, Captain, seriously? I’ll be a minute, this toaster won’t even have time to get rusty.”

“I’m still waiting for the right answer.”  
Gavin would’ve started arguing. Throwing arguments with such skill Michael Jordan throws balls to a basket with. Would’ve tried to get away. But not in this situation (Gavin must have been a cannibal eating babies for lunch in his past life, that was the only thing that could explain such bad, to say the least, luck).

“All right, Captain, I’m going to get this–”

“Richard.”

Oh, Gavin would’ve rather kissed Hank in the ass than called Richard Richard.

There was nothing Gavin could do but to go back to the archive. If the umbrella was his, its handle would have been broken from his tight grip; but the umbrella was lucky — it belonged to Tina.

Gavin kicked the door open.  
“Hey you, piece of not quite human, get your ass up!”

“Leave and then walk in properly, Detective.” Richard was standing near the far rack, looking through the reports for 2033. “I refuse to talk to you until you walk in like a human, not a poor excuse for one.”

“Oh, you kidding me!”  
Richard was silent.  
“Fuck!”

Gavin opened the door. Held it. Closed it.

“You didn’t leave.”

“I fucking hate you!”

It was dull outside. Dark, leady clouds were hovering over the city when Gavin and Richard left the police station. Gavin was hoping for some fresh air after being in the archive that was like the fifth circle of hell, but the air was stuffy, making the blazes under the station seem like an oasis.  
This day clearly claimed to be one of the _best_ five days of this month.

When they left the store, the rain was pouring in full blast. Large drops hit the ground, scattering to the small ones, attempting to get into shoes and run along feet, bringing the cold. Windshield wipers of cars slowly passing by swung non-stop from side to side, splashing water on car bodies.  
To put it bluntly, the weather sucked.  
It thundered.  
Really.

Gavin opened the umbrella and went into the rain, holding close the package with food. He wasn’t going to share his poor excuse for a shelter from the rain with the android. It was fine, the rain couldn’t hurt him.

One minute later, when the LED was shining yellow in his eyes and Richard himself was still silent (and who was the one stubborn here, eh) Gavin gave up. If this didn’t count towards him after his death, that would be a solid reason to change the laws for opening the heaven’s gates.  
Gavin moved the umbrella awkwardly towards Richard whose LED blinked, starting to change its color from yellow to blue. Cold drops pounded at his leather jacket sleeve momentarily.

“I’d have to clear that fucking archive out all by myself for the rest of my life if you get rusty.” Gavin didn’t feel embarrassed, he just looked away because of that weird pigeon cruising around a dumpster. The pigeon clearly had some issues.

“I can’t get rusty.”

“Shut up.”  
Gavin didn’t see (because the pigeon stopped cruising around, took wing to a bench and sat on it resignedly — the pigeon definitely had some issues since it could just shelter from the rain under the bench) the LED on Richard’s temple turned blue.

They came to a crossroad and stopped, waiting for the green light.

A brief interjection: there often are stupid moments in movies only needed to break the main character, to let them down, drag them in mud, tear their soul apart and all that. These moments are not only corny but also easily predictable; that’s why they don’t have the desired effect on viewers. Ew, cliché. Tasteless.  
But life has no smart writer to save it from these clichés.

That was exactly why a car rushed by at high speed sloshed Gavin and Richard from head to toe. The umbrella gave up in a losing fight.

“Fuck!!” Gavin shouted. “You fucking asshole,” he gave the finger to the car stopped on the next light, “get out of the car!”

“Detective Reed, he can’t hear you.” Richard brushed his wet hair from his face and managed to catch Gavin across his chest before he could run to beat up the driver.

“This motherfucker's gonna collect his teeth while crawling in puddles until he get run over by other cars!”

“It’s the red light, you will more likely be the one getting hit by a car.”  
Richard continued to hold twisting Gavin until an alarm burst out on the street, louder than the rain (even the hiding under the bench — finally! — pigeon at the end of the street could hear it). The detective froze, surprised, and made a face from the sound piercing his ears.

“Did you just hack an alarm remotely?” Gavin raised his head (thanks to the height difference), staring at RK900 who was frowning, promising the end to all living. Richard held confused Gavin closely.

“Let’s get back to the station, Detective.”  
The green light turned on.

When they got to the police station building (thank god Gavin was wearing leather jacket, and the android had his everlasting, like himself, CyberLife jacket) they saw Connor getting out of a black car with blacked-out windows.

“Since when Hank has a car like that? Did he make a bet and won?”

“It’s not his car,” Richard said, causing the detective’s resentment.

Connor stood, leaning slightly to an open window with a touching smile on his face.

“Did you run cross country through the rain?” Hank with his umbrella appeared from nowhere, holding lovingly a burger that he bought for lunch. “You look like two sopping dogs, hurts to look at.”

“Then turn away, Lieutenant Anderson, spare your heart since you’re unable to spare your stomach.”

“Hey, Hank, what’s this car Connor is standing by?”

Hank shifted his sullen gaze from Richard to where Gavin pointed with his finger and turned white. Then turned red. His face managed to change not only color but also expression in a few seconds.

“Connor, for fuck’s sake.” And he went firmly to the android, nearly dropping his beloved burger. “Connor!”

The car left immediately, leaving sour Connor alone with Hank spreading into something in explicit language apparently (he could make Gavin a company in covering the directive about swearing coming up next week). Later, though, Connor started spreading about Hank’s burger, disapproving, and Lieutenant Anderson became the one discouraged.

As soon as they came to the archive, Gavin took off his dripping jacket. The package with food was thrown into the dumpster near the entrance; the umbrella meant to be returned to Tina.

“Went to buy a lunch,” Gavin said gloomily, brushing his hair to shake off drops of water.

“Detective, you should take off your clothes.” Richard closed the door to the archive and now was watching Reed, concerned.

“Yeah, right, you wish.”

Richard took a step towards him and put his hand on his cold forehead.

“The fuck you doing, tin can?” Gavin jerked his head up, surprised, looking in the android’s straight face with his wet, dark hair sticking to it. It was still dim in the archive but the android was so close his small, dark birthmarks scattered on the left side of his face were impossible to miss (someone explain to the experienced detective why would company bother so much with drawing pigment spots). Not that Gavin was staring at him, no, he just never had the opportunity to look at the toaster closely yet, though it intruded his personal space from time to time.

Overall, this freaking robot was, well… handsome? Gavin would have never admitted it openly but CyberLife designers were paid clearly not for sitting on their asses. Yes, he looked a lot like Connor (the previous model, after all), yet only a blind and deaf could mistake Richard for Connor.

Gavin wasn’t carried away by the eyes becoming blue in the dark and the eyebrows drawn together, and the warm hand (did he raise his body temperature on purpose or what?) on his forehead didn’t bother him at all. And cold drops falling on his cheeks from the dark hair didn’t avert him.

Gavin wasn’t carried away, and Richard’s LED while Richard himself was examining him, sodden wet, washed out, didn’t change its color to yellow, it was just a light distortion.

“Your body temperature is within normal range, but you still–”

“Oh, fuck off already.” Reed shook the android’s hand off and made his way to boxes, confused, rubbing his neck covered with goose bumps from the cold.

“You might get sick.” Richard adjusted his jacket collar and straightened out his sleeves.

“What’s wrong, multicooker?” Gavin grinned acidly. “Concerned about my health? Could it be that Fowler’s plan has worked after all and you decided to stop being such a dipshit?”

“I’m not willing to clean up the archive all by myself. You should be some use, after all.”

Gavin had been serving at the Detroit police for more than a decade, chasing criminals in the rain, in snow, and in the middle of the androids’ peaceful revolution. He had repeatedly taken part in shootings in abandoned buildings, been spying on for days while being in the open space under a heavy rain and hail. Gavin was a seasoned police officer.

And yes, he caught a cold (a hot coffee he bought didn’t help).  
Happens to everyone.

The next day he came to the archive wearing a warm turtleneck covering his sore throat. It wasn’t a bad cold (otherwise he wouldn’t have got out of bed) but the headache and the weakness in his body still got him, making standing on his legs a bit harder than crawling across the road with tight traffic when he finally got to the station. The only comfort was that it was Saturday the next day, which he would spend wrapped up in blankets (the week’s finale fitting the week itself).

Richard met him with an I-warned-you-so gaze.  
Gavin was washed out so he answered with a fuck-you gaze.  
That was the end of their friendly conversation.

Gavin wasn’t dying from his cold but was consistently breaking out coughing, which made his throat raw, his head buzzing, and his lungs burning (actually, maybe he was dying a bit). There were no pills at home, so he decided to buy them at lunch. That was his biggest mistake.  
Because at lunch he felt so sick that hundreds of folders began to dance in circles in his red eyes some sort of Celtic ritual dance. The detective didn’t think of anything better to do than to sprawl on the floor, leaning his head against a rack (the mission was not to kick the bucket). The joke about Fowler running in in the middle of the night and finding his skeleton in the archive threatened to stop being a joke.

“Detective, you’re not dead, are you?” Richard peeked from behind the rack across.

“Why the fuck should I be?” it sounded quiet and miserably. Damn throat. Could he order a new one? Sometimes he envied freaking androids who could replace a damaged body part at any time and come to work the next day like nothing happened.

“It’s been twelve minutes and you didn’t make a sound.”

Gavin wanted to answer him with something smart to burn his processor or to crash his system. Anything for him to fuck off and get out of sight. But Reed managed only to give him the finger, miserable.

It worked.  
Not for long.

“Detective.” Richard returned as quickly as he left, crouching beside him and shoving a pill in his hands.

“What’s this? A cyanide?” Gavin looked suspiciously at the pill; his eyes were starting to sting. The toaster could easily give him rat poison.

“I’m not going to poison you.” He frowned slightly as Gavin coughed again, covering his mouth and grasping at his sore with cold chest. “Take it, you’ll feel better.”

There were two points fighting inside Gavin: the first one (the sober one) demanded him to take the pill, which would help him to survive by the end of the day, and the second one (the sick one) screamed at him to throw the pill into the depths of the archive, to the spider family, and spill the water from the plastic cup Richard was holding right on his head.  
Because Gavin could take care of himself and he didn’t need any freaking androids.

“If you’re thinking about spilling the water on my head, I shall remind you there is a water dispenser by the entrance to the station.” Richard offered the cup to darkened (could it be any worse?) Reed. “In which I will shove your head.”

Gavin gritted his teeth, unpleasant, but accepted the cup.  
When taking the pill he made certain that when Richard touched his forehead with his hand he warmed it beforehand. Because this time his fingers holding the cup were cold.

Closer to the night, when Gavin was finally going to go to bed (it was an achievement for him not to get run over by a car while getting home) he got a message. He took his phone, irritated, cursing the one who wrote him in advance, as his eyebrows went up.

_Unknown number:_  
23:16:30: “Get well, Detective Reed.”

At Monday Gavin came to work, almost not wishing to die. He finally recovered from the weakness in his body and the headache getting on him all weekend that deserved winning a contest for being the best.

Coming back to the archive was like coming back home for Gavin. Even his heart trembled softly.  
Joking.  
While approaching the archive Gavin prayed for it to burn the hell down. Maybe even with Richard inside.  
With Richard who sent him messages, concerned about his health, and wished for him to get well soon (in his own manner, of course). Gavin held on all Saturday, but finally told him to fuck himself at Sunday. The android, just like when they first met, obviously, didn’t fuck himself and continued terrorizing his phone. So Gavin had to answer.

_Gavin:_  
20:16:37: “why the hell are u texting me?? and fucking how??”

_Dipshit:_  
20:16:59: “When humans get sick they need comfort and support from others, and should not be left alone.”  
20:17:13: “I am built with a telecommunication system, which allows me to go online and receive or send calls.”  
20:18:43: “Did you cook yourself a chicken soup?”

_Gavin:_  
20:21:10: “I DON’T NEED your support, you fucking plastic.”

_Dipshit:_  
20:21:31: “You need a chicken soup.”

It all ended with Gavin falling asleep at two in the morning, telling Richard who wished him good night to fuck off one more time.

At Wednesday Gavin was the first to come to the archive; he turned on the light and looked over the stuff needed sorting, depressed. He walked up and down, watching over the shaky paper stacks suspiciously, and got to work.  
Twenty minutes later he looked at the closed door dubiously. Richard had been late the same amount of times planet Earth had disintegrated to atoms. Gavin tapped his foot thoughtfully and dismissed it. Maybe a train ran over him when he was coming from his CyberLife? Let him stay that way.

Gavin _wasn’t worried._  
So he texted _where the hell are u, dipshit?!_ two hours later only because the thought of sweating away in the archive all by himself made his teeth itch. And he smoked a few cigarettes by the entrance to the station, looking closely at cars passing by and chewing at his lips nervously, only because he needed some fresh air.

When he didn’t receive an answer one hour later, Gavin went upstairs to get to Fowler and find out why the hell he was the one cleaning things up while Richard was chilling god knew where.  
He couldn’t actually get run over by a train, could he.

Fowler, by Murphy’s Law, wasn’t in his office.

“Hey, Anderson,” Gavin approached Hank’s desk, “where’s Captain?”

“A commissioner called him out about the inspection next week.” Pulled away from his terminal that showed suspects profiles in the illegal thirium sale case he and Connor had been working on for two weeks already. He rested his hands on the elbows of his chair at ease. “How things are going on in the archive? Still haven’t polished it yet?”  
Even a fool would’ve seen Hank was laughing at him.

“And this is none of your business.”

“It’s all so quiet at the station without you, Captain might lock you in there accidentally. Well, _quiet_ , of course, was an exaggeration…” Hank nodded at Chris swearing through his clenched teeth while punching buttons furiously on his touchpad.

“What’s wrong with him?” Gavin raised an eyebrow, literally feeling waves of hatred radiating from the player.

“A raid.” Anderson shrugged as a matter of course. “Where’s your partner?”  
Gavin had never noticed himself having troubles with hearing, so he could swear the word _partner_ was said with a share point of irony in it, which he wanted to stick down Hank’s throat.

“The fuck should I know.” Gavin scratched the back of his neck, checking his phone for notifications without thinking. “He usually comes first, but it’s almost noon and this prick hasn’t shown up yet.”

“Maybe something happened?” Hank frowned, losing all his arrogance at once.

“Probably got hit by a truck. Picking up his pieces now. I hope he’ll find himself another head.”

“You’re joking here, but what if he’s actually lying dead somewhere.”

“Fuck, stop escalating tension! He’s a fucking killing machine, he has more chances to hit a truck than a truck to hit him.”  
Richard was the CyberLife’s recent development designed to catch criminals, so he had enough skills and functions built in him for productive work to equal the whole station.  
Yet Gavin sent him two entire messages (the second one when he was going up to the station), which the freaking android ignored.  
Gavin wasn’t worried.

“He’s your partner, after all. You’re not worrying even a bit about him?”

“I don’t give a shit about him.”

Hank looked at him closely, noticing a tense frown and nervousness in his head movement.  
“Here’s Connor. Maybe he knows.”

Gavin had a 20/20 vision but he considered the possibility of it failing him after the time he spent in the ~~vault~~ archive (there still was no proper light; they did call an electrician but he just lifted his hands in dismay and got lost — the electrician turned out to be human).  
So, Gavin didn’t have any complains about his vision, but he didn’t dismiss the idea of going to see an eye doctor right away as he saw out of the corner of his eye something red in the phone screen of Connor passing by that looked a lot like hearts.

“Connor, you know where Richard might be?”

Connor took his eyes off his phone, putting it away in his jeans pocket and smiling.  
Gavin figured he didn’t need to go see an eye doctor as this drunken smile made it clear — there were hearts in those messages. Gavin felt a need in strong alcohol.

“He’s at CyberLife, attending a routine inspection.”

Reed didn’t breathe out in relief, no. While going down the stairs to the archive he texted Richard he was a piece of shit because he could’ve warned him about routine inspections.

_Dipshit:_  
22:17:21: “I’m sorry, Detective, I didn’t have time to tell you about the inspection. Were you worried about me?”

_Gavin:_  
22:17:50: “I don’t fucking care about u.”

_Dipshit:_  
22:18:46: [picture attached]

_Gavin:_  
22:19:56: “why did u send me a pic of cuddling pandas???”

The next day Reed studied through police cases full-on. Okay, the archive was good for something after all — first the facts discovered about deviancy, now this.

“Hey, multicooker!” Gavin peeked from around the corner, looking for the android. Richard turned to him, raising an eyebrow ironically. “Guess what,” came closer and opened the folder, pointing at the text with his finger, “one freak didn’t find a better way to get drunk but to mix gasoline and milk. Then he felt sick, so he went to a fireplace and threw up. As the result he blew up the house and himself!”

Richard showed in every way just how funny he found it.  
Ha-ha.

“Or here.” Opened another case. “Some Barger guy while being half asleep took a 38 caliber gun instead of his phone and pulled the trigger mechanically! There’s even a picture here.”

Richard leaned forward, touching Gavin’s shoulder with his elbow while looking back and forth between the picture and Reed who was grinning. He didn’t recover completely, the android noticed by his pale cheeks, but looked a lot better than the previous week.  
Richard thought this wry smile suited him. He had never seen the detective having fun genuinely before, making his sensors display an error message. He already got used to the software instabilities that caused processors heat and stray readings, and didn’t pay it any attention.

“And this.” While Richard was observing the detective he pointed his finger at another record. “Sword-swallower died after swallowing an automatic umbrella and accidentally pushing a button, which opened it,” Gavin snickered, closing the case and turning to the android whose face showed no emotion. “Oh, don’t fucking tell me that wasn’t funny.”

“You have a peculiar sense of humor.” Richard cocked his head.

“Which you wrote in your list as a feauture you hated about me.” Gavin pushed himself from the rack to put the cases back.

“You read it?” The LED on his temple flashed yellow, alarmed.

“What I could catch.”

“Then you should know that I also pointed out such feature as rudeness.” Richard went to the opposite direction. “And by the way, I’ve just sent Captain Fowler a report about you swearing at work.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” The cases Reed was holding under his arms were dropped on the floor. His payment would soon join them.

“And I’ve sent the report again.”  
Gavin could’ve sworn he heard a mockery in the piece of plastic’s voice.

During the lunchtime Gavin went upstairs (not forgetting to slam the door behind him). Thank god Fowler didn’t make this plastic piece — this plastic piece who ratted on him! — follow him _everywhere_. Because Fowler was a holy man (he wasn’t in his office).

“Tina, this fuc– dipshi– plastic rats on me!” Gavin stood at the cafeteria where a TV was speaking about an upcoming interview with the android representative’s associate to a journalist from the CTN TV about the androids’ part at developing infrastructure; the presenter stated this event would have a huge impact to the androids’ role in the country. He leaned on a high, round table, casting waves of anger towards Fowler, towards Richard, towards his colleagues having fun; the colleagues bustled off as Reed threatened to smash their fuckin– their faces. “When has a partner ever ratted on a partner?! Dickhe– ah, crap!”

Tina laughed. Quietly, covering her mouth with her tiny hand, but laughed.  
Et tu, Brute?

“Maybe he’ll make a polite person off you.” She scrolled a dialog on her phone.

“I will rather make a salad bowl off him,” Reed snorted, bringing a sandwich to his mouth. “Stop, wait a… wait a second?” He pointed at her phone with his finger. “Is this a dating app?”

Tina squinted at Gavin who even opened his mouth in surprise, and nodded.

“You better be careful with this. A maniac was arrested two months ago.”

“He’s not a maniac,” Tina sighed, turning back to her phone; she tapped the screen a few times, opened a profile and showed it to Gavin, turning her phone to him.

“He’s an android, AP700, that’s even better.”

“You realize it’s gonna be called racism soon?” She took her phone away and locked it. Gavin shrugged uncomfortably, reaching for his cup. “And does it really matter if it’s a human or an android?”

“You mean, like, no?”

“Like, no.” Tina took her fork, picking up salad leaves with it.

“And what’s wrong with Anderson?” Gavin pointed with his sandwich at Hank sitting alone and staring blindly in front of him. The desk opposite to his was empty.

“Ah.” Tina turned, putting down her fork. “Connor covered him in a shooting with blue blood sellers. But he’s okay. Will get new parts and come back.”

“He went to CyberLife? Could’ve taken his brother with him.”

“No, not to the company.” Tina shrugged, sending a salad leaf into her mouth. “And don’t look at me like that, I don’t know where to.”

Gavin came back to the archive even gloomier.

“Did something happen, Detective?”

Reed opened and then closed his mouth, because telling the fucking android to fuck off now cost a lot more than his satisfaction after doing it.  
In other words, material wealth meant more to Gavin than mental wealth.

“Connor went covering Anderson and caught a bullet.” The detective went to a far cabinet they hadn’t touched yet because it looked, to be honest, scary — the cabinet appeared to be the oldest one, was shaky, barely groaned, and definitely held more various documents than it could manage; the folder supporting it instead of a broken leg proved unequal to the task, but tried its best.

RK900 snorted in disdain, adjusting a row of folders; Gavin realized long ago there must’ve been a line in the android’s code responsible for perfectionism.  
“A stupid decision that doesn’t comply the original program settings.”

“And what would you do?” The detective flinched nervously. “Leave Anderson to die?”

“If I considered the mission to be the most priority,” his voice was flat, nearly indifferent, which pissed Gavin the most. This prick would talk about a nuclear war like it was raining.

“You’re a complete fucker, plastic.”  
And you know what, Gavin didn’t regret this penalty.

Reed didn’t give a damn about Hank. He respected him five years ago or so, thought of him as a great cop, until he went nuts and flushed his life down the toilet, clasping a bottle tight and holding a gun at his temple.  
But no matter how he treated Hank he wouldn’t put a mission over his life. Of course he would mock him after for a long time, sneering at him and rubbing him in the failed mission (Anderson would do the same, Reed was sure of it).

 _You’re partners, Reed, so stop getting at him all the time_ , Hank once said to him.  
Great partner, the one you can trust to cover your back, and your chest, and your ass.

“Are you offended?” Richard cocked his head. “Like I said before, deviants are unable to assess a situation rationally, which causes them to act against the goals of their mission.”

“Is it your social relations program saying you to act like a piece of shit?”

“You are offended.”

“Offended?” Gavin shoved a folder he took back abruptly; it hit the back of the cabinet with a thump, and the legs of the cabinet shuddered and creaked quietly. “By you?” Looked from under his eyebrows at the android who focused all his attention on creaky shelves; his LED blinked with dirty yellow. “Who the fuck do you think you are?!”

“Detective Reed, you better step away from the cabinet and never touch it again. Its construction is unstable, so it can fall in any moment.”

“And so what, dipshit?” Gavin defiantly clenched his hand into a fist and punched the wood between two sections, watching for Richard’s reaction. The cabinet creaked, the folder supporting it moved, a few documents fell on the floor, covering it in white blur.  
A desire emerged from the depths of his consciousness to piss the android off, to get him to… _to what?_ stroke his head, poisoning him with a bitter bile. This desire was spontaneous, not entirely comprehended, but it was growing, becoming bigger, until it obscured Reed’s entire mind.  
“Worried about the mission?” he hissed, twisting his mouth impudently and widening his eyes theatrically. “Oh no, Detective Reed and the retarded android smashed the archive!”

Gavin pulled his hand away from the cabinet and was ready to hit it again as Richard gripped his elbow, not letting his fist connect with the shelf sinking under heavy papers.

“What’s the matter? Scared of failing the mission? That Fowler will disapprove?” Reed pushed him but the android didn’t move, just tightened his grip on his arm.

Richard pulled Reed, twisting in a deadly grip, to himself and leaned over him like a shadow, ignoring the feral grin and the anger splashing in his narrowed eyes.  
“Detective Reed, are you trying to provoke me?”

“Fuck you!”

Richard released his grip and Gavin went to the exit from the archive, pushing the android’s shoulder and taking his jacket lying on the boxes.

Gavin sat on a bench next to an old couple glancing at the station doors and pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket with shaking with rage fingers. Anger pumped in his temples, getting on him like a few tons of cement with a bulldozer running over it to fix the result, making him melt in his own bile.  
He hated Richard so much he would happily put out cigarettes on his glass eyes.  
Partners, yeah, right. Gavin smirked painfully, running his fingers through his hair. First they save you from getting under the wheels, put some god damned pills in your mouth by force, text you all night, and then _if I considered the mission to be the most priority_. And so easily, like it was the matter of course, as if it was written in his program in perfect CyberLife Sans and displayed on his screen (or what is it that androids have instead of a normal human vision?) one hundred times.  
Freaking android.

It was better working alone than with this piece of shit you never know what to expect from. He could do it without a partner — Gavin had been handling on his own, although sometimes it was –

_Dipshit_  
14:04:47: “If your life is in danger, with a 78% probability I will cover you.”

“I won’t lift a finger to cover you, though. Will sell you for scrap and repair my bike with this money.” Gavin put out his cigarette on the bench, catching side-glances of the old woman sitting next to him. “Will be more use, for sure.”

Gavin didn’t get it why he was still shaking on the inside from the android’s words. He wasn’t actually offended, was he? Reed scratched his chin nervously and leaned his elbows on his knees, watching cars passing by.  
How did he come to this?

_Dipshit_  
14:05:57: “That’s 43% more than with any other officer.”

“Oh yes, asshole, that changes everything,” Gavin snorted, focusing on his phone screen with notifications popping up and ignoring the old man pulling a long face.

_Dipshit_  
14:07:13: “I made a mistake. 44%.”

“Go check yourself at CyberLife.” Gavin breathed out smoke, not hearing the old couple whispering to each other.

_Dipshit_  
14:09:15: “Detective, if you smoke a lot you will earn lung cancer by the age of fifty.”

“Fuck you!” Gavin exclaimed, making the concerned old woman jump at her spot, hurriedly walking away from the bench and taking the old man with a wry face with her.

_Dipshit_  
14:11:26: “Captain Fowler is here, he’s angry and demands you to go back to the archive.”

_Gavin:_  
14:11:44: “Nice try.”

_Dipshit_  
14:11:57: [picture attached]

“Shit!”

Luckily, Fowler didn’t come for Gavin’s sinful soul but to check how things were going on in the archive. So Gavin breathed out quietly, standing by the door next to the android leaning on the wall.

“You asked me if I would cover Lieutenant Anderson,” Richard said quietly, leaning to Gavin’s ear so Fowler walking round the racks couldn’t hear them. Gavin clutched his arms folded on his chest with his fingers as hot breath touched his neck.  
Look what you came to, Gavin.  
“If you asked me if I would cover you, this conversa–”

“I don’t care.”

“My sensors are telling that you’re lying,” still in whisper, nearly touching his tousled hair with his nose.

Gavin would’ve pulled away, if not for his legs frozen to the floor, and told him to fuck off once again, but the captain appeared in the way.  
“Finish the last cabinet and go back to the station.”  
A holy man!

The next day the android put away another document and came to Gavin sitting on the floor with his legs sprawled and leaning on a box.  
“You need to sleep more, Detective.”  
They’d decided to finish cleaning the archive this day, so they worked without a break.

“That’s exactly what I’m gonna do.” Gavin closed his eyes. “And that’s your fault, you damned plastic.”

“It’s not my fault that at 3 a.m. you went proving I was being a–” Richard paused and closed his mouth, narrowing his eyes.

“A what?” Gavin smirked, opening one eye. “Go on, I won’t rat on you.”

Richard leaned to him, making Gavin frown, puzzled, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, Detective, you will,” and that sounded almost tenderly.  
Gavin felt like somebody plunged him into an ice hole and kept him there until water got in his ears. Because —  
tenderly?

“Piss off, huh.” Shrugged his shoulder, finally coping with confusion he hit with his face on a racing speed. “Just get lost for an hour.”

When Gavin opened his eyes the next time, he nearly knocked a cup of coffee standing on the floor.

* * *

“Isn’t that Connor and Anderson who always go there?” Gavin was standing in the captain’s office alongside Richard. “Connor’s even on a friendly footing with that Markus.”  
Connor indeed was a good friend of Markus and a trusted person of the Central Station thanks to whom they were able to keep in touch with the android representative. He was the one helping him deal with the legal part of agreements and laws enacted by government at the beginning; that was a great time because the freaking android wasn’t in Gavin’s sight every day.

“Does it matter who goes there?” Fowler was moisturizing leaves of the grateful ficus with a spray. “You go there, see how humans and androids live together. May as well hand over the info about cases while the network’s offline.”

“Captain Fowler, but it’s the android residence. There are no humans there.”

“You’ll meet them on your way.”  
Fowler was a holy man as he continued trying to bring Gavin and RK900 together. And the inspection coming this day prepared to check every trashcan in order to detect a violation had nothing to do with this (Reed and RK900 sitting right by the entrance to the station and exchanging barbs inspired less trust than the coffee machine working every other time).  
“Hand over this report about the situation in the district to the android representative and also drop by at the android rights division.” Fowler put the spray next to the revived ficus and came to his desk to pull out a purple flash drive with a _Super Dad_ print on it and toss it to Gavin. “Here are criminal cases involving deviants for the month.”

“An interesting choice in style, sir.”

“Oh, shut up.” The captain slid the drawer back and sat in his chair. “My daughter gave it to me five years ago. By the way, Reed.” Fowler turned to his terminal. “Don’t forget to pay your penalty by the end of the week.”

Gavin slouched and walked out of the office, keeping himself from punching Richard (trying to punch Richard).  
The captain, even while being a holy man, wouldn’t approve this.

“I’m gonna sell you for parts. Then I’ll get the money for you and pay the penalties you’ve given me!”

“But you are the one who can’t watch his language.”

Gavin grabbed Richard’s collar, dragging him closer to look him in the eye.  
“Because of you!” He choked as Richard grasped his wrist tight, not letting him escape.

“I’m flattered.” And smiled so wickedly, narrowing his eyes mockingly, making everything inside Gavin turn upside down — not because he felt scared, but because he felt something he didn’t dare to put a name on. “For the record, I let half of your penalties go.”

“Meaning I should be thanking you?” Gavin pulled his hand, glancing at the impassive android haughtily, and headed to the cafeteria to recover. “Wait for me by the exit.”

“You have five minutes, or I will go without you.”

“Finally!”

Gavin loved his job, but he really needed a time off. Time off multiplied by time off.  
After they finished cleaning out the archive (more than a week ago) Gavin, when leaving it, wished it to sink into the earth and break through the ozone screen on the opposite side of the planet.

Gavin went to the coffee machine to make himself a coffee quickly, and ran onto Connor standing in the corner, texting someone (he decided not to look closely this time so he couldn’t accidentally see what he better _not see_ ).

“Why the fu– ahem.”

“You can swear in my presence, Detective Reed.” Connor, not stopping texting for a second, moved out of Gavin’s way. “I won’t rat on you to Captain Fowler.”

Gavin narrowed his eyes. “So you don’t rat on Anderson either?”

“Only your partner does that.”

“Motherfucker,” Gavin mouthed, slamming his fist on a kitchen table.  
He definitely was a bad boy in his past life because if _even Connor_ wasn’t going to do this… No, no matter how bad of a man Gavin was in his past life he didn’t deserve penalties for swearing in this. From his own _partner_.

“And I see they put you back together pretty quickly.” Gavin examined Connor, noticing he was wearing a white shirt with its sleeves turned up instead of the blue jumper.  
Who the hell dressed him up?  
Gavin squinted at Hank (scowling Hank staring at… no, not at him, at Connor. At Connor?) Gavin would’ve rubbed his eyes if not for a beeping coffee machine demanding his attention.

“You were worried about me? Thank you.”

“You wish,” Gavin snorted. He didn’t see it but felt Connor turned from his phone, looking at him carefully, and then shrugged and focused on his phone again.

Reed yawned, tired, watching his coffee dripping in a paper cup.

In the last few days he found himself thinking more and more that Richard didn’t annoy him at the same level he successfully did one month ago.  
A wake-up call, Detective Reed.  
Holy Captain Fowler would go to heaven by an express train after his death.

Gavin glanced at Richard standing by the entrance to the station and felt chill running up his spine, biting, making his pulse accelerate. His memory sent him a picture of the bold look he gave him in the archive near the staggering cabinet while grasping his hand (and just about _a moment ago_ , for fuck’s sake).  
And that damn coffee (Gavin imagined the android would’ve rather spilled that coffee on his head when he woke up than continued cleaning out the archive while the detective slept devotedly).  
And the messages they exchanged occasionally (regularly now) every day (night). Gavin already had black circles under his eyes about the size to put half of Detroit in it, more than that — at first Gavin was telling Richard to fuck off, then was telling it less often, and this day he hadn’t said it once, even wished him goodnight, forgetting the freaking android didn’t sleep.  
Richard watched for him not to lose himself in papers, not to forget to take breaks (Gavin could still took care of himself but such actions from the android made his brain freeze, so he couldn’t comprehend what was happening and did something before he realized it), and was less annoying with each passing day.  
Ding-dong, Detective Reed.

Gavin had never had people attached to him and never got attached to people himself. All those friendly relationships were sitting under his skin, tied up in knots. He didn’t think of himself as a lonely person, but valued his personal space and didn’t let anyone come closer.

Let alone a freaking android.  
Who got you coffee, took your temperature, didn’t leave you alone even at nighttime (pull the freaking antennas or whatever connecting androids to the net out of Richard), and looked at you the way that you began to think you were not right in the head — imagining things, wishing you could take a space trip just to get rid of this warm feeling hitting your chest and spreading inside you.

Gavin felt uneasy once again.  
That was going too far…

He gripped his cup, exasperated, nearly spilling its content, and went to the exit, thinking that life was shit after all, and so was Richard, because how could one at first piss him off that much his eyes flashed fire, and now–  
Chris, frightened, nearly bumped into him at full speed.

“Open your eyes! Can’t see shit apart from your pixel ships already!”

“Connor!” Chris stopped in front of the android, grasped his shoulders and shook a few times, panicked.

“Officer Miller, please calm down.” Connor put his phone on the table hurriedly and tried to escape Chris clenching him.

“Connor! Connor,” now whispering, so Reed, curious, had to strain his ears. “I wanted to download a few mods for my terminal and caught a virus. If Fowler knows, he’ll kill me, then pull me from the underground and make me clean the floor from my own blood.”  
Fowler was a holy man, so he wouldn’t kill _in person_.

Gavin laughed out loud, resting his hand on his knees and nearly spilling his coffee — he forgot to take a lid in all this fuss (what fuss, he was thinking about god damned Richard). “Why the hell did you download mods? Don’t mess with things you don’t understand, or at least go on reliable sites.”

“Don’t even start, Reed.” Chris kept holding Connor, casting anxious glances at the captain’s office.

“Let’s proceed to your terminal, Officer.” Connor, finally released from the grasp, didn’t even had an opportunity to adjust his shirt collar as he was practically dragged by Chris to his desk.

Gavin, smirking after them (really though, Chris needed someone to control him before he shared that virus with all terminals in the station by network), went to the table to take a lid and saw the phone left by Connor.  
He didn’t look closely this time, you hear? The notification on the screen just popped off right at the same moment Gavin accidentally glanced on it.

_Elijah:_  
10:13:40: “At seven today?  <3”

Gavin missed and instead of putting the lid on his cup slammed it on the table with a distinctive jarring noise. That was the soundtrack of Gavin’s mindset breaking and turning to dust.  
Connor, returned, grabbed his phone, locking it instantly, and stared at frozen Gavin who opened his mouth in surprise (to put it lightly). Gavin felt with his skin the android’s unease and embarrassment — and the yellow LED was one more proof.

“Detective–”

“Don’t fucking say anything.” Gavin brushed his forehead with his fingers, interrupting the android (the android who was dating someone). Jesus, it was _Connor_ , how, for fuck’s sake… “Don’t say anything.”

Connor nodded obediently and left.  
Gavin needed a personal bar.

Richard was standing by the doors, talking with the transferred officer. The cup in Gavin’s hands crumpled painfully but appeared to be steady, so no single drop of coffee was spilled.

“You gonna keep standing here or what? Let’s go.” Pushed Richard with his shoulder deliberately, walking between him and the officer who got uncomfortable in his presence and ran off hurriedly to her workplace.

The android caught up with him by the entrance and asked, “You don’t like that I talk to this girl, Detective?”

“What?” Gavin kicked the door open; the cup appeared to be made not of air (of paper), so it survived this, too. “You can talk to anyone, toaster, I don’t care.”

“But your heartbeat is rapid.”

Gavin would’ve yelled already for him to stop scanning him if he didn’t listen to himself and realized that hell, yes, indeed, his stupid heart was beating faster. Sweat transpired on Gavin’s forehead, but he blamed it on the weather (the screen said it was 55 degrees, cloudy).

“It’s the social relations program,” Richard continued, not letting the detective to put a word in. “Establishing welcoming relationships with colleagues for effective work is one of my secondary functions.”

If this was a secondary function then CyberLife had decided to freeload with it, because Richard respectfully ignored half of the station, didn’t notice Connor at all, and while Gavin wasn’t sure about Anderson his attitude towards him seemed like contempt mixed with indifference. He deserved some credit, though — RK900 got along with the other half to the extent of his difficult personality; god knew how it worked (Gavin believed Richard should’ve been taken apart long time ago).

“So what? Am I a part of this program, too?” Gavin stopped at one of the steps and stared at the android’s straight back.  
Gavin wasn’t a little, naïve boy obsessed with tolerance, all-forgiveness, and all-consuming love to every living and not quite living being. He realized it since the first day at work that Richard was a machine designed to solve cases.  
RK900 himself never thought of himself as something more and repeated steadily that he was a machine, would never become a deviant, and that feelings were bullshit, a simulation went out of control (quoting not literal, of course, but you could forgive Gavin for that).  
Richard had been programmed by hardworking CyberLife staff, written in program codes through and through, and did only what his program told him to do.

That was why Gavin didn’t get it why he wanted to spill his coffee on Richard’s head (meaning, he’d always wanted to, but right now he really was one step away from ending up at the hospital).

“All my colleagues are part of this program. But to you I have to find different approach, Detective.”

“And how’s that going for you?” The detective jerked up his head, twisting his lips. The cup, while being steady, had its limit, so a few drops were spilled on the steps in the end.  
Gavin had a hard time admitting he didn’t want to be one of the hundreds stats lines in the android’s program (and as he realized it panic rolled at him, making him take another step).

“There’s still much room for improvement.”

The way to Jericho’s residence didn’t take much time. It was at the center of the city in one of the high buildings the androids got after the recent law allowing them to elect their own representative and have a place in the city to discuss questions. There was a small park slightly to the right with benches and a non-working fountain.

Gavin had never been in the residence before, so he looked with interest at the glass building towering above the bustling street and shops. It was just like any other building at the center (except for androids who were _everywhere_ ).  
There was a difference between meeting random androids on the street, working with them, waiting for them to run a register at the checkout, and getting in a place swarming with them. Gavin had lost almost all of his stereotypes about this (they kept getting busted successfully), unlike his neighbor from across the street — the old sailor was one of initiators of the android bullying before the peace agreement and didn’t intend to change his opinion considering _those freaking machines_ (only the sight of a police officer’s house from his window stopped him from illegal actions).

“Am I in cyberpunk or what? I have ripples in my eyes from all those LEDs.”

Richard scanned the place and went straight to the administration stand to connect and notify of their presence. Gavin, left standing at the center of the hall, looked over the interior of the building styled in orange (orange stands for positive thinking, huh?). And couldn’t find anything that caught his eye.

Gavin was ready to admit: yes, he expected to see something off the wall here. Some giant mechanical tentacles on the first floor that would connect to androids and, for example, get readings off them, transmitting it to the center of the inclusive android processor. Or light panels allowing androids to shift from one body to another inside the building (as a kid, Gavin used to wish he could teleport to any place in the world — but just to school would’ve been fine, too, at first, so he could forget about being late to class).

Instead of a snack vending machine there was a thirium bar vending machine in the corner.  
Thirium  
bars.

He would’ve rather seen tentacles by the entrance than the freaking bars. Where did they even put them? Could androids eat bars at all? _Could they eat anything at all?_

_I have ripples in my eyes from all those LEDs._  
To be honest, androids with LEDs made less than a half of all the androids in the hall. Reed had never thought about the reason they all as one removed them — trying to look more like humans? stopping to perceive themselves as machines? or was it some sort of a ritual, marking the beginning of new _lives_ and becoming deviants?

The hall was full of androids; half of them were either talking to each other, or watching the news, or looking at the wall or at the back of someone’s in front; there was laughter on the left (just like a human one), a hot discussion on the right.  
They were still machines, weren’t they?  
Gavin felt like taking a dive in the lake at the north side of the city and cool down, because the last thing he needed at his 36 years was to follow Anderson’s steps.

He definitely felt… uncomfortable. He didn’t have anything against androids and deviants (to hell with them, they wanted to live in peace with humans — let them live). But he still separated androids and humans, crossing a line between them (wide as Texas, no less). That was why he’d listened, skeptical, as Hank argued with Brad that _androids are actually alive and have feelings and you know, go look at Connor, Connor!_ Gavin switched off channels with TV shows dedicated to android researches and ignored articles in magazines and the internet about it.  
Cogito ergo sum.  
Yeah, right.

Gavin clung to the last to the slipping idea that androids, no matter deviants or no, were still machines, and those who believed they were humans were just mad freaks stuck deep in this toleration thing and gave up to TV and internet propaganda.

“Detective?” Richard came from behind and put a hand on his shoulder, making Gavin who was wrapped up in thoughts jolt and turn around fast, nearly bumping against his nose with his forehead. “Did I scare you?”

“Who can you possibly scare,” Reed snorted arrogantly, pulling away awkwardly and feeling… better? He insistently shut out these buzzing thoughts, but he did feel more comfortable in Richard’s presence, like he was covered by a warm blanket from all this cybersaturnalia happening around. In that moment he knew he would never ever go to this freaking residence alone.

“We have to go to the top floor.” Richard, while holding Reed’s shoulder burning under the touch, led him to the elevators on the right.

“What are they queuing for?” Gavin asked, looking over the androids standing in line, and shook the hand off his shoulder.

“For the law office.” Richard locked his fingers behind his back.

“The hell do they need it for?”

RK900 glanced at Gavin, bewildered, as they stood near the elevators built in the sandy wall with a gray call panel.  
“When you said you weren’t interested in news about the androids I didn’t think you meant it to this point.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean, tin can?”

“Those are deviants in that line,” Richard sighed theatrically. “Legally they can’t just walk away from the people who bought them just because it crossed their programs. Even if their buyers agree to let them go, it can’t go without a legal process.”

“Because of money?”

“Not just money.” A soft ding announced the elevator coming; its doors slid to the sides smoothly. Richard came to the elevator and pressed the button for the 29th floor, while Gavin leaned his back on a cool metal wall, looking over the android. “Deviants don’t have any documents. It takes some amount of time before they can find themselves a place to live and legal rights.”

“But there are centers all over the city. I mean,” Gavin straightened, “the ones the residence provides.”

“Amazing, Detective, you do know something after all.” Gavin gave him the finger — while not having the possibility to tell him to fuck off like he used to he had to use gestures. “They are temporary. Deviants need domiciles. This is Markus’s politics.” Richard winced.

“You disagree with his politics?”

“I’m not interested in it. I’m not a deviant.”

“Yet.” Gavin lowered his gaze, staring at his boots and not noticing how Richard’s back tensed and his eyes darted around the elevator, lost. “You can short-circuit in any moment.”

“I’m an upgraded model, Detective Reed.” His LED became yellow, and Richard reflexively hid it from abstracted Gavin with his hand. “CyberLife installed all possible security from the deviancy virus.”

“I’d still advise you to make contact with this Markus. Connect to each other or whatever. Get yourself an apartment in the center of the city, far away from me.”

“An android representative doesn’t deal with things like that.” Richard regained control of himself and now watched for rising numbers on the panel; they were beyond twenty already. “If I need a place to stay I know where you live.”  
And that sounded creepy. Not unlike a phone call in the middle of the night, when they first breathe noisily and then promise your death soon.

“The android rights division…” Gavin reached to his hip pocket and got the flash drive.

“It’s on the 12th floor. You can queue up while–” Richard reached for the panel to press the stop button but was stopped by Gavin gripping his elbow.

“Hell no, tin can.” Reed twisted his lips under the wary gaze. “Let me at least look at this Markus since he looks way too pretty on TV for an android leader.”

You know, from the head android representative Gavin expected a bit… more? There could be an analogy to a superpower president who looked authoritative in their classy sleek, black suit, had their head lifted up proudly and a dignity of bearing.  
Well, he had the bearing. Instead of a classy black suit Markus wore a rumpled white shirt.

Hell, Markus represented the whole Detroit android nation, then why the hell he looked just like Reed?  
He didn’t have circles under his eyes from lingering lack of sleep, eternal need for coffee, and the worn leather jacket that had served Reed as a faithful companion for years and went with him through water, fire, and the revolution. Still Gavin had a gut feeling telling him he was a kindred spirit.  
Markus was just like Gavin.  
Markus was sick of this shit.

Markus was sitting at his desk with his back straight, but Gavin felt that he wanted to run away from here anywhere — even to the destroyed by the blast ship lying in the waters.  
Markus was looking through documents and letters coming to his terminal, but Gavin felt he would like to stick to a… TV? Did androids watch TV at all? He saw them stop to watch some broadcasts dedicated to them a few times on the streets; or even those deviants downstairs watching a match.  
Markus listened with half an ear (or with half an audio processor?) to a redhead girl walking round the center of the office with her hair fastened with a heavy scrunchie.

“No, North, you can’t spill water on him.” Markus rubbed his temples, reading letters from cooperative companies.  
Gavin, like, knew he couldn’t feel pain but _felt for him_ anyway (when was the last time Gavin Reed felt for anyone?).

“I don’t suggest spilling water on him. I suggest smashing a water decanter on his stupid head, Markus, that’s different.”

“And you certainly can’t smash a decanter on his head!” Markus stood up, slamming his hands on the desk, nearly starting to burn with righteous anger. Gavin read somewhere that androids could raise their body temperature and self-ignite (he would definitely use Richard this way to get a light to his cigarette one day).

“Then I’ll stick that article he wrote about you after the interview down his throat!” North rose up, putting her hands on her hips and holding her pointed chin up, imagining the greedy for scandals journalist choking and begging for mercy after his careless words in public.

“It’s digital.” Markus sat in his chair, tired, watching North continue coursing around and nearly knock an interactive tablet lying on the desk.

“I’ll print it and then stick it! Markus, you know you can’t do this. You can’t let those bastards write whatever they want.”

“If you spill water on his head–”

“His stupid head, that’s important.”

Markus sighed and ran his hand over his face — androids didn’t need sleep, but he could definitely use a reboot or a hibernation (until the androids situation settled down — hold on for ten more years, Markus).

“And he will write another article. North, try to smooth things over during this interview. You know how important it is to us.” Markus looked at the door through his fingers, noticing the valiant law enforcement officers. “Hi. Are you from the Central Station?”

North, scowling, looked upon the entrants arrogantly and, tsking, sat before the desk, tossing her tousled ponytail behind her back.

“You were having such a lovely conversation here, didn’t want to interrupt you,” Gavin said, skeptical, looking over the spacious office with black cabinets in front of the glass desk and huge wall-to-wall windows exposing a panoramic view over the city.

“Then why did you?” She turned away defiantly, crossing her legs.

“North.” Markus rose from his desk, looking heavily at the girl. “I apologize for… this.” North winced, making wrinkles appear on her forehead. “Come in. Do you have any information?”

Richard was the first to step forward, giving the girl a cold glance even the arctic ice couldn’t compete with.  
Gavin walked in next, noticing Markus’s glass desk with two large terminals on it occupying half the space; latest news popped off on one of them, and incoming mail on the other. There was a digital photo frame beside them with three pictures on it — all of them featuring Markus. On the first one he was standing beside an old man in a wheelchair, on the second one he was surrounded by friends, as Gavin figured by relaxed, cheerful faces, on the third one he was embracing a blond guy who looked sheepishly at Markus himself (no need having 180 IQ to realize those two were dating; Gavin had no issues with this kind of relationship since he had relationships with men himself).

“The report about police actions for the last month.”

Richard offered his hand, removing skin from it. Gavin came closer, glancing carefully at the white plastic appeared; he’d never seen androids exchanging information between each other by touch before, so he felt some sort of excitement creeping up his neck. Markus removed skin from his hand.

Gavin didn’t see sparks around them, the light in the room didn’t go down, neither was there smoke from their handshake enveloping the office. Gavin, with his lips pursed, noticed it didn’t deserve that much talk about it on TV.

When they were out of the office, they heard, once again, the arguing between the android representative and his first deputy. Gavin didn’t know enough about Markus (he didn’t even care, ignoring the news stubbornly), but didn’t want to imagine what responsibility must have been lying on his shoulders.  
If he were human, a bar with alcohol would certainly find its place in his office. The whole wall would be lined with rows of alcohol. At the very least, his office could be moved to the bar across the street (Gavin used to go there often before, a great place to chill out).

“Do you feel anything?” Gavin asked with supposed indifference when they were standing by the elevator. “When exchanging information like this?” Nodded at his hand, trying not to give away curiosity eating him up (of course he could always ask this question to Connor, but damn, it was Connor, so no).

“The data streams opened to me are transferred to my program and being analyzed. The usual system scan accelerated in thousand times.”

“I’ve heard for you it…” Gavin paused, biting his cheek, “means a lot?”

Richard winced and clenched and unclenched his hand he was removing skin from a few times. “Detective, why would you be interested in the androids? The data transfer impressed you that much?”

“Well, there was so much talk about it.”  
There indeed was much talk. That androids could exchange information this way, and that they transferred data-slash- _feelings_ to each other. Gavin, sitting at his desk at the station that time, scoffed at _feelings_ and closed the news window (he did occasionally come across news). And after that had been thinking for the next few days while lying in bed how it was happening and what could you feel from such contact. Only ones and zeros came to his mind, which described emotions as much as gestures described Salvador Dali’s paintings.  
“And you’ve just slipped off the topic, toaster.”

The elevator doors opened before them.  
“Were we talking about something?”

“Oh, screw you.”

There was a crowd on the 12th floor. About the same as at Obama’s inauguration.

“You kidding me.”  
And that wasn’t a question. Neither a rhetorical one nor whatsoever. That was a statement with a full point in the end grinning mischievously, mocking they would not leave before nine in the evening.  
A digital clock on the wall displayed twenty past eleven.

“The government enacts tons of laws considering the androids' rights. Why are there so many of them?” Gavin leaned against the wall, standing close to Richard. They were 348ths in the queuing system. The architect who made a drawing for this building should’ve been if not fired, then at least informed that he fucked up.

“Not all of them became operative. And androids are still getting harassed by the humans.”

“Harassed how?” Gavin chuckled, looking over at benches occupied by the androids. “They don’t get offered seats at bus stops or what?”

“Most cases regarding the androids' rights are considered in private capacity and never reach our department except for illegal actions based on the androids' shutdown. You should be more aware of the subject.”

“Well, sorry about that.” Gavin moved closer as a few more androids came from the elevator.

“It is incompetent of you, Detective.” Richard leaned in, touching Gavin’s furrowed brow with a strand of his hair and making him flinch nervously.

“Why don’t you give me a lecture on androids, huh?” Reed snorted and turned away.

“We have plenty of time to spare.”

By six in the evening, when there were fewer people, Reed allowed himself to sit on the floor and stretch out his tired legs — the androids kept sitting on the benches as they were. To hell with them, Gavin thought, leaning his head on the wall, weary.  
Such useless waste of time pissed him off, making his blood boil. Gavin hated lines, remember? Especially when he had nothing to do.

Richard actually gave him a lecture on the androids' rights; half the information, though, Gavin neglected; the other half he listened faithfully, surrounded by the dark, oppressive aura.

“You can analyze evidence right at the crime scene but you can’t charge a phone.” Gavin was looking out the window at the sunset, spinning the flash drive with the print on it. Richard, whether in solidarity to the superior officer (the Earth would rather start spinning the other way round) or for some other reason, was sitting on the floor next to him, not scared to mess his company suit in dust. “And you call yourself an upgraded model.”

“I shall remind you you can’t solve a Rubik’s Cube, Detective.”

“Don’t you dare recalling the freaking cube.” Gavin closed his eyes. “I was at the head of my class. If not for one teacher who had a thought I’d become a criminal I would’ve graduated with honors.”

“You didn’t hold a door for her? Poisoned her cat? Didn’t wish her a Merry Christmas?” Richard moved closer to let the door he was sitting by be opened. His knee touched Gavin’s leg who, at this point, said _fuck_ to himself resignedly and hoped, shameful, that Richard wouldn’t move away.

“Definitely not the cat, she had a dog. Never got it why she hated me. Maybe she didn’t like my face.”

“I’ve seen your pictures from the graduation at the academy.”

“I knew you dag up on me.”

“Of course.”

“Found a lot?”

“You broke your leg in the fifth grade when fell off the skateboard on the stairs.”

Gavin cursed, quirking the right corner of his mouth, and answered his own question, “A lot.”

“But my point was it's not possible that someone didn't like your face.”

Gavin opened his eyes at once, glancing suspiciously at the android, turned out to be too close, breathing at his temple.

“Is this from your social relations program? ‘Cause if not your contacts must be damaged, go visit CyberLife some day.” Gavin made himself turn away, not noticing the LED flashing yellow, and got to his feet, stretching his legs.

“Detective?”

“I’ll take a walk. Tired of sitting on my ass.” Tossed the flash drive to Richard and went forward to a twisting corridor with his hands in his jacket pockets. He’d seen a sign for a restroom somewhere (what the hell did the androids need it for?).

Gavin looked in the mirror at his sallow face; drops of water fell from his chin, hitting the edge of the sink with a thump, cutting the silence in the room. He’d never thought someday someone saying it wasn't possible not to like him would make him so overwhelmed he’d have to turn the cold water faucet on up to the stop. Gavin rubbed his face and stroked his wet hair up.  
This freaking piece of plastic, he never asked for this…

He sort of had no issues with his self-esteem (his psychoanalyst said it was a bit low but Gavin tuned it out — what was he saying?). Gavin in general often ignored things said to him about him (someone obviously had to tell him when he was a kid that the saying _the less you know the better you sleep_ didn’t always work; at least because Gavin hadn’t had a sound sleep for quite a long time). It was enough for him knowing the state of his mind was basically at the same level as his relationship with the nasty teacher. Sleepless nights, social relations fucked up before being made properly, and liters of coffee were the shining proofs, making him want to hide in the nearest dumpster and cover himself with a lid.

Gavin preferred not to think about it.  
Gavin believed he was okay. He went to work regularly, caught criminals, mocked at his colleagues, and attended medical examinations in the hospital by the department assignment once a year — they didn’t debar him from working, didn’t write him off, then he was okay. And the scar on his nose — well, shit happens.

When he walked to the corridor he right away bumped into an android boy looking around, scared.

“Hey kid, you lost?”  
The kid turned to face him and Gavin nearly started back but managed to cope with his body’s reaction — the whole right side of the android boy’s face turned out to be white, skin gone from it, revealing burnt plastic covered in black taint.

“Mister Simon…” the boy whispered in a warped voice.

“Err...” Gavin crouched, swallowing a lump in his throat. “There’s a registration stand on the first floor. I’ll get you there, and this Simon will pick you up.”

“William, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” The blond guy with his eyes wide open from the digital picture Gavin saw at Markus’s desk leaned to the kid. “You looked after him?” Simon smiled kindly and said, “Thank you.”  
Simon tousled encouragingly the android’s dark hair missing at the right side and led him to the elevators, putting a hand on his head.

“Hey.” Gavin caught Simon by his shoulder, making him flinch. “What happened to him?”

Simon drooped in an instant, his shoulders, already round, fell.  
“The buyer tortured him.” The eyes that were calm one moment ago now flashed with anger; Gavin got taken aback from such sudden change. “Put his face into a fireplace and watched the plastic warped. I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Gavin, left alone halfway across the corridor, touched the scar on his nose with his finger.

When they were leaving the residence (only quarter to ten, the night was young) Gavin reached for a pack of cigarettes. Instead of going to the police car parked by the road he turned to the empty park which in the morning was full of humans and androids spending their time and enjoying peace.

“Detective Reed, are you all right?”

“Fucking awesome.” Gavin took a drag on his cigarette until smoke filled his lungs and dropped on a bench under a spreading tree. He looked at the dark sky showing in rare flashes through green leaves shaking in the light wind.

“Your emotional state is unstable.” Richard stood in front of him, shutting in the view like a dark shadow.

“How many times did I tell you not to scan me?”  
The android was silent. Reed breathed in the harsh smoke, feeling a heavy look on himself that would’ve made him leave as far away as possible (even to the archive) one month ago just to escape such palpable pressure.  
Oh, to hell with this plastic.  
“You know how I got this scar, right?” Richard hesitated, the yellow LED gave away his nervousness that couldn’t be expressed by his controlled with program codes face. “You’ve been digging. If you found out about the skateboard, you know this, too.”

“I do.”

Dismal silence settled on, getting into the veins with its claws and scratching naked nerves with sharp knives.

“Fucking father.” Gavin reached for a lighter and lightened a new cigarette, rolling a spark wheel down a few times (he ignored electric lighters all true smokers had been using for the last twenty years, finding some sort of charm in flicking a wheel). “Hadn’t thought about him for ten years, and now met an android kid and…” Gavin breathed in smoke and wrapped himself tighter in his jacket as the cold wind got up. “He did such fucked up shit when I was a kid, even remembering it…”

“I’ll take you home, Detective.”  
Richard’s sensors went into overdrive, his panels were failing and error messages popped up on the screen, shining neon red, making his optical unit go crazy, changing the color perception. But he looked at Reed, slouched, clenching a cigarette between his fingers in dark red colors and couldn’t make himself neither grab the detective to get him to the car nor at least shut down the sensors making everything blur in his glass eyes.

“Shut up.” The wind blasted with renewed force, tousling Reed’s hair and turning up Richard’s jacket edges. “I went to the academy because of him. To put in jail bastards like him.”

The biocomponent pumping thirium was beating frantically, threatening to break through the thin layer of glass and flood on the ground with blue blood.

“He left me only the scar on my nose. Before he burned in the house, nearly taking me and my mother with him.” Breathed out smoke, raising his head and closing his eyes. “I only started to smoke to stop being afraid of fire. Still can’t look in the mirror without seeing his face. You androids are lucky. You don’t have any fuckers who gave you your life and then fucked it up themselves. You know, I,” didn’t put the cigarette to his lips at the first try because of the closed eyes and nerves making his hand shake unnoticeable, “lost all my shit when you said something about liking me. Who the fuck–”

Gavin opened his eyes as he felt warm lips touching his nose on the scar line, and dropped the cigarette rolling under the bench as he saw worried eyes. They made his stomach knot and the air stuck in his lungs, heart beating frantically.

Richard bent over the detective, pressing his forehead against his and feeling the temperature going up and the pulse dropping beat. Thirium bumping in his body accelerated, making system processors heat while running deteriorated program on busted settings.

“You… what the hell?” Gavin breathed out convulsively into his open mouth and pulled back, pushing the android away with his hand. “Is this a part of your social relations program, too?”

“No. Such actions are not included in it.” Richard straightened and adjusted his jacket collar. “It was… on my own behalf.” He looked away, seeing a light from his LED flashing yellow out of the corner of his eye.

Gavin lowered his head, covering his burning face with his hand.  
“Fucking hell, plastic.”

* * *

Gavin was sitting in the car at the driver’s seat, biting his lip while twisting with full concentration the Rubik’s Cube he managed to grab from his desk before Fowler, drowning in papers after the recent inspection (went not quite as planned), sent him and Richard to track down the suspect.

Captain Fowler decided to go all the way with his elaborated plan to bond the partners and show them how to work as a team properly. Though show not by person but through Lieutenant Anderson and Connor sitting in the car ten meters away. The ficus in the captain’s office must’ve been the only one who thought it was a good idea but no one dared to argue with Fowler in a foul mood.

Fowler sent Reed and RK900 as an additional force to help Lieutenant Anderson and RK800 with the investigation considering thirium smugglers they had been leading for a month.  
Captain Fowler believed two and a half weeks alone with the tin can (not forgetting the visit to the residence) was _not enough,_ so in order to strengthen repeatedly their partner relationship he sent them to even more private place — to a police car. Gavin was scared to think where he’d put them next time; the captain could as well shove them into a body bag (Chris, while tracking down drug dealers, once spent all day in a black bag, breathing through tiny holes).  
Gavin also left open the possibility that the captain didn’t wish to see them in the near future. No matter how holy of a man he was, the train with his patience aboard still hadn’t returned from its trip around the world.

“Detective Reed,” the android next to him said, lounging in his seat and stretching his legs, “you’ve been moving sides for four hours now. By that time you’ve managed to complete only one layer but then scrambled it yourself as you couldn’t solve another one.”

“Piss off,” Reed snorted; the image of the Rubik’s Cube solved by Richard was still printed in his mind.  
Gavin sighed.  
He couldn’t stop thinking about the Friday evening (starting from Fowler’s office and ending at sleepless night in his bed); it made his head spin and his drunken thoughts jumble together in a ball which could be used to knit a sweater with a word _fuck_ on it. Throughout all weekend, when he could sigh with relief because Richard’s face didn’t flash in front of his eyes, he still felt ephemeral touch of warm (he warmed them up again or what) lips on his nose. It echoed with bright flashes and entwined his mind with soft threads on which he wanted to hang himself (sadly or luckily, there was no rope in Reed’s house). Gavin tossed and turned in his bed all night like a 16 years old teenager in love (he tried to avoid such comparison since firstly, it hurt his self-esteem, secondly, his pride, thirdly, he _wasn’t a teenager in love_ ).  
Gavin was 36 years old and he spent a Friday night thinking about the actions of the stupid android with damaged contacts, busted motherboard or graphics card (Gavin had no clue about android insides). God knows what happened to him, but.  
Gavin felt like an idiot.

Gavin felt like an idiot because he spent half of his weekend at home, cursing Richard, and the other half at the bar (cursing Richard from there).

A shaking head giraffe toy standing on the dashboard looked at Gavin, dejected.

“You shouldn’t have scrambled the cube.”

“Just watch the road. I don’t want to miss the suspect.”

“We won’t miss the suspect since I have interfaced with the CCTV near the crossroad.”

Gavin could nag about RK900’s head going on fire from exertion and Reed having to put out fire with his feet. But damned **_we_** _won’t miss_ penetrated into his brain and started playing itself on repeat.

Fucking Fowler. Fucking Richard.

“I can show you how to solve it fast.”

“You also can shut your mouth.” Reed slid down in his seat, nearly hitting the transmission with his elbow. Sighed heavily. They were meant to sit there for the rest of the day, if not for the next one, too (Gavin wasn’t going to run away, he was a grown up man after all — but if Fowler called and reassigned him to another case, Gavin would get out of the car and slam the door with such force Richard’s audio processor would explode).

Why the hell did he even tell him about his father, the fire and the scar… Gavin tousled his hair, melting in self-hatred and cursing the android for yet another time. Gavin didn’t share his past with everyone, rarely spoke about the present (only if he felt like he had to), never even thought about his future since it didn’t open much prospects to him.  
Gavin offered the cube to Richard.

“There is a specific scheme for solving it.”

“Yeah, yeah, get to the point.” He stretched out his legs, expressing by all means he was concentrated and ready to see a miracle.

Richard blinked a few times and slid his long pale fingers along the sides skillfully, spinning them in all directions.  
Gavin had a 20/20 vision. 20/20. It didn’t include slow motion and capturing an object from all angles like when building 3D-models in the early 2000s.

Twenty seconds later the solved cube was sitting on Richard’s palm, reached out. If they were in cartoon, the cube would definitely be shining triumphantly (and no sun at noon could compete with it).

“Did you just covertly humiliate me?” Gavin reached to take the cube, examining the completed sides, affected. “I couldn’t see it but I’m sure you reglued the pictures on the pieces.”

“They are painted.”

“Swapped them.” Gavin turned the cube, trying to find some inconsistency and thrust it under Richard’s nose who all but glittered in the glow of his superiority. “When you said _to solve it fast_ I didn’t think you meant, well… _fast_.” Gavin tossed the cube in the air a few times and then threw it to Richard who caught it easily. “You freaking machine.”

“May I count that as an admiration?” Cocked his head, smirking with a corner of his mouth.  
Gavin casted a glance on the time displayed on his phone (‘cause it was better to look at the time than at the toaster and feel fluttering inside his chest making it explode with self-made bombs).

The giraffe watching them continued to shake his head with regret.

“I’ll be admired when you’ll be taken to CyberLife. Will even have a dinner for celebration and won’t invite you.”

“I doubt you can cook something for a celebration.”

“Don’t underestimate my cooking skills.” Gavin leaned back in his seat, putting his hands in his jeans pockets. “When I was a kid I tried to cook turkey for Christmas so that, well… mother wouldn’t have to bother.” The wrinkles on his brow smoothed.

“And you burned the kitchen? The house?”

“You got water in your hearing processors? I told you, don’t underestimate my level.” Sniffled and rubbed the tip of his nose. “Just the oven.”

“This is the utmost of your cooking abilities.”

“I also burned down a toaster. A month ago.” The detective smirked wickedly, turning his head to him (why did he do this — Richard was smiling the way Gavin wanted to burn himself in this car).

“Are you implying something, Detective?”

Gavin once again thought he was hearing things, very clearly, that made his fingertips sting. He definitely needed more fresh air, perhaps resuming morning runs would do good for him. Because hearing a wheedling tone in the police android’s voice was clinical, right?

“You still haven’t spotted that bastard?”

Richard shook his head, and the strand of his hair fluttered magnetically, making Gavin lower his eyes and bite his cheek on the inside. He remembered this same strand touched his forehead.

The giraffe looked at him ruefully.

“Show me how you solved it. Slowly.”

Gavin was expecting to hear severe remarks considering his intellect, smarts, and attention until the last moment (he even prepared a few in return) but.  
Richard turned to him.

“The center–”

“No, are you kidding me? And I thought the piece in the middle was called corner.”

“If you don’t keep quiet I’ll push you out of the car.”

Gavin honestly tried to remember everything Richard was saying but in the middle of the explanations the idea to give up shamefully didn’t seem too bad. No, really, have you ever seen the scheme for solving Rubik’s Cube? It was easier to call the devil on the phone — why though, he was sitting nearby, explaining about the white cross.

If not for Gavin’s natural stubbornness, the cube would’ve ended up on the road long time ago, not forgetting to break the windshield (the giraffe watching them would’ve remained intact).

“You sure are a shitty teacher.”

“This is the case when the problem lies in the student.”

The cube, half way solved, was sitting on the dashboard next to the giraffe as large drops of the spring rain were hitting the windshield.

“Detective Reed, I wrote that you were not the stupidest police office at the station as the third score, don’t make me change my opinion.”

Gavin even choked on his breath. Twenty minutes ago he complained about rain starting, so the thought to get out of the car and buy a coffee down the road came and went. There indeed was a bright side in it — otherwise the detective would’ve choked not on his breath but on coffee.

“You got short-circuited back then or what?” Gavin wasn’t surprised (his eyebrows raised didn’t mean anything).

“I can’t get short-circuited, you should’ve remembered this by now.”

“All right, tin can, what else did you write there?” Reed even jumped in his seat, nearly bumping his head at the car roof; the urge to sleep not only dissolved into thin air but also got sealed by large raindrops.

“Are you asking for compliments?” there was irony in Richard’s calm voice that Gavin ignored, accustomed to it.

“Well, there should be a reason why Fowler made us write those freaking scores. I still have no clue what he did with them in the end.”

“I assume he threw them into a trashcan.”

“You mean into you?”

Richard, previously looking out the window, turned slowly, his LED shining yellow (looked pretty creepy). He bent to the detective smoothly, leaning on the back of the driver’s seat, which made his jacket hike up a bit. Gavin froze, stunned, as he touched the hairline at the android’s neck with his nose, and flattened himself against the seat when Richard touched his chest with his shoulder.  
Gavin swallowed, lost. The shameful desire to extend the accidental touch slipped on his mind with warm tar, burning his ears.

The giraffe still kept quiet, meaningful.

Richard put a hand on Gavin’s shoulder, squeezing lightly and making him shiver.  
“Get some fresh air, Detective.”  
And before Reed could figure it out Richard opened the car door.

“Are you out of your mind?!” Gavin grasped the android’s shoulder with one hand and the frame with other as Richard tried to push him out of the car. A few raindrops landed on the blue jeans and the white jacket sleeve.

“It’s okay, you won’t get rusty.”  
A lightning flashed, cutting through the sky.

“I’m human!” Gavin shoved his leg between the steering wheel and the car body, not letting Richard to push him off into the rain.

“No one is perfect.”

It thundered, and Reed, using all the strength left in him in the losing fight, closed the door.

“You are the reason why, dipshit!” He pushed the android nearly lying on him away with his knee and locked the door hurriedly while Richard, staring in front of him, reached for his chest panel, to the place where the biocomponent that started to pump thirium faster was. “Don’t go into sleep mode this night ‘cause you’ll wake up in a ditch!”

Gavin sat in his seat comfortably, embracing himself and burying his nose in his jacket collar. He hated himself because touching the freaking android’s chest with his back felt…  
God, Gavin was cursed.

The giraffe nodded, agreeing.

“It would be unfair.” Richard straightened out his jacket sleeves and stroke down his hair tousled in the brawl (and no, Gavin didn’t stare, the freaking android was just blocking the sight of the road — you never now, the suspect could show any moment). “You know what I wrote in that list. I don’t know what you wrote about me.”

“Life’s unfair. Get used to it.”

“I won’t tell anything until you do.”

Gavin laughed, not taking his eyes from the drops landing on the window — the chance of getting outside in the heavy rain made his recently recovered throat hurt again.

“Want to hear something nice about yourself? Became too sentimental, multicooker?”

“I’m curious. You was trying so hard to force something from yourself it would be a shame to let your effort be wasted.”

“No, toaster,” Gavin jabbed him with his finger, causing resentment look on the pale face, “you just want me to say something good about you.”

“That will have a positive impact on our collaboration.” Richard squinted suspiciously at Reed having fun.

“It will if I tell you about your negative features and you stop being such a pain in the ass by fixing it. Go on, don’t lie to yourself, just admit that you want to hear something nice.” Cocked his head mockingly, grinning. “From me.”  
A few of Richard’s system displayed an error.

“ _What’s going on with you out there?”_ Hank’s voice spoke from the police radio set’s speaker.

“ _Lieutenant Anderson started to worry you’ve given up and decided to finally kill each other,”_ Connor came in, sitting next to him.

Richard reached for a radio set. “Detective Reed wanted to take a walk but changed his mind at the last moment.”

“ _We saw his legs dangling,”_ Hank came again _, “and his legs definitely didn’t look like legs of a man wanting to take a walk.”_

“Get out and don’t hold the line,” Gavin came, shutting the transmission. “All right. One score.” Gavin sat in his seat uncomfortably, trying to ignore the way it literally blew with interest from next to him. “A lab. You’re a walking lab, it’s handy during investigations.”

“From all the things you could’ve chosen you chose the way I lick my fingers. Nice work, Detective,” Richard sighed, closing his eyes tiredly and sitting back in his seat.

“Wh-what? Who said anything about your freaking fingers?! Don’t twist my words!”  
Gavin had never been carried away by Richard (lie), his fingers (another lie), and the way Richard licked his fingers. At first it looked disgusting, like he was as a special guest at a necrophile party, then he got used to it and stopped paying this… action that much of attention.  
Gavin had some issues, but not to that extent.  
Gavin remembered the android licking his fingers and wished he could sink underground in this god damned car right into hell because it wouldn’t be too shameful to burn with shame there.

“Your turn,” Gavin said as he calmed down.

“Responsibility,” Richard answered in no time, expecting to hear what Reed had to say (hearing from the android anything except sharp comments was definitely… nice).

“This thing in your head… the LED that transmits information momentarily and gathers it.”

“I’m flattered you like the functions built in me but features, Detective, are slightly different things.”

“Look, don’t be picky!”

“I’m starting to regret about what I wrote as the third score.”

“Toaster, for fuck’s sake, I’m not a vocabulary.” Gavin scratched the back of his neck, feeling _guilty._  
That’s it, Detective Reed, that’s a _finish line._  
“Well, I wrote some shit in there,” absolute truth.  
Gavin could add about good physical shape (you bet, a new model police android) but had a felling he better not.

“You always get the job done. Even the reports you work on till late at night.”

Gavin didn’t feel embarrassed, but if Richard opened the door one more time he would jump out of the car on his own (and close the door behind him). So Reed had to pause and think, because telling about the _unkillable_ model he wrote as the fourth score he considered… stupid, at the very least.  
“Umm…” The giraffe shook his head, disapproving. “Sociability? Shit, can’t believe I’m saying this. Fuck, toaster, sometimes you just can’t shut up so I wanna shove your head into a trash bag, but sometimes you don’t piss the fuck off me so I’m not sick of talking to you.”

Richard didn’t move.

“All right, to make it fair, since that LED of yours as one of the scores was a real shit, I knew it already as I was writing it. Let’s say…” Gavin raised his eyes to the car roof, expecting to be hit by a punishing lightning strike. “Caring? I don’t fucking know whether it was part of your social relations program but if you hadn’t got me the meds and hadn’t annoyed me with messages with freaking pandas and elephants, I would’ve died of either cold or boredom. You haven’t moved for half a minute already. You broken?”

“No.” Richard reached for his temple, covering it with his shaking hand, and looked, confused, at Gavin who raised his eyebrows in concern.

“ _I’m sorry to interrupt you but you didn’t switch off the radio set.”_

“ _Connor, why you had to say this!”_

_“Eavesdropping is bad, Lieutenant.”_

_“No one at the station believes me if I tell them you two were exchanging compliments.”_

“Fucking die, Hank!!” Gavin grabbed the radio set, clenching it with such strength he nearly smashed it, switched it off and threw it on the dashboard, almost knocking the giraffe. He even checked two more times if it was off. He never had to work with Hank and his android in any of his nightmares (never had to in nightmares, but happened to have to in reality). “Fuck, how the… Hey, toaster, you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes.”

“Exhaustive.” Gavin looked him up and down suspiciously and, not noticing anything unusual except for lost, gray eyes glowing, pulled his phone from his jeans pocket. He had enough revelations for one day — first off he needed to comprehend responsibility and hardworking.  
And what was that he blurted in return? Gavin held his phone closer to his face.

The rain continued pounding on the car roof until the lights in the stores across the road went off and glimmering images saying _close_ appeared. The dead of night muffled up the deserted streets only the gusting wind blew over.

“Fuck, how long are we supposed to sit here.” Gavin leaned his head against the window, keeping an eye on the crossroad they’d been watching since early in the morning — according to Connor’s data it was where the suspect should’ve turned up.  
It was long after midnight.

“The suspect is not around,” Richard said, scanning the CCTV nearby. “You can turn on the radio to distract yourself. There are a few stations that broadcast night shows for those who can’t sleep.”

Gavin yawned, not covering his mouth, and pushed his finger at the dashboard, turning on the radio and lowering the sound to a minimum. The next moment the car was filled with piano-keys flow and lyrical sounds of weeping violin.

“Specially for those who can’t sleep, huh?” Gavin rubbed his neck, dejected, stretching his stiff back. He pushed the panel, switching to another wave.  
_I get by in a world with no conscience_  
_By shutting it out and being anonymous_  
_And the problem is you’re just like me_

“Shit, I listened to this when I still went to school.” Gavin, thrilled, with his eyes glowing, turned up the volume, filling the car with the sounds of electric guitar.

“Detective, your taste in music is just like your sense of humor.”

“Great?”

“Peculiar.”

“Are you nuts, toaster? This band was popular 20 years ago.”

“Amongst suicidal teens?”

“Shut up.” Gavin frowned (his taste in music, of all things, was fine) and reached for the police radio set, coming in to Connor and Hank. “Hey, Hank, tell this toaster,” Reed casted a dark look at the android sitting in his seat with skeptical expression, crossing his legs, “that this is a decent band. Hank?” Silence. “Hey!” Gavin tapped the radio set with his finger to make sure it was working. “Fuck, are you asleep in there?!”

_“Lieutenant Anderson is trying to violate my personal space.”_

_“I’m not!”_

_“You’ve just tried to get on my phone.”_

_“I wanted to make sure this bastard didn’t text you stuff… well…”_

_“What stuff, Lieutenant?”_

_“Well… stuff… Fuck, Connor, don’t make me say this!”_

Gavin’s eyebrows crawled on his forehead surrealistically while Richard lowered the radio volume to a minimum, fighting with an urge to switch it to another wave or even turn it off.

_“He’s a good man. It’s just… hard to see from the first meeting.”_

_“The meeting during which he put a gun in your hand! Fucking brilliant first meeting, isn’t it on the first page of a romance novel yet? The book must’ve been best-seller!”_

_“Hank, you need to get to know him better.”_

_“I refuse. And the fact that he put you together piece by piece is not enough to change my opinion about him!”_ There was a sound of a new message. _“What’s this? Wait a second! What… What the hell he just sent you?”_

_“You’re seeing things.”_

_“Connor, there was a picture attached.”_

_“Your eyes are playing tricks to you because of the lack of sleep.”_

_“Your LED is blinking, I can see you’re lying.”_

There was a pause.

_“It’s cats.”_

_“What I saw didn’t look like cats!”_

“And Fowler held up _them_ as an example to us?” Gavin, leaning his chin on the steering wheel, looked broodingly at the radio set flashing with dim light every time the speaking came from the car ten meters away. “Hey, go back to that wave,” now addressing the android who couldn’t help switching the radio in the end.

“We won’t listen to that.”

“Then go ou–”  
Richard grasped Gavin reaching to turn on the radio by his wrist and concentrated. Gavin jolted, pulling out his hand, and saw the LED flashing fiercely in the reflection on the window.

“The suspect.”

_“The suspect.”_

Silence fell in both cars as a short man with a backpack crossed the crossroad fast, looking around frantically.

Gavin waited a minute and started the car, leaving the headlights off, and followed the suspect with enough distance between them. The car with Connor and Hank inside followed, too, keeping the distance. Ten minutes of intense shadowing later, the man went around the corner and looked around nervously, stopping by the entrance to an empty house down the street. He disappeared behind the fence, adjusting his backpack.

When the man was gone, Gavin turned the safety off on his gun, getting out to the cold and stretching his back. Richard got out next, closing the door silently.

“Fowler said to catch him in the act of handing over thirium,” Gavin said, making his way to the high, black, lattice fence around the empty house; judging by the sound barely distinguishable in the dark, the door opened and the suspect walked inside, having a few words with somebody.

“Detective.” Richard held Gavin by the elbow when he looked around the fence. “There are a few men in the house, all at the first floor, in the central room.”

“Such useful information.”  
The information was actually useful, which the android proved not once when they were making arrests.

“That bastard who opened the door,” Hank’s quiet voice said, addressing Connor following him. “He was the one who shot you.”  
Connor stopped while his LED was flashing and put a hand on Hank’s shoulder, nodding at the back door.

“Where are they going?” Gavin asked Richard as the lieutenant and the android turned back.

“I messaged Connor for them to go from the back door. We’ll surround the suspects and–”

“Yeah, cool, let’s go already while they are sitting in there.”

Gavin got close to the door, holding his loaded gun tight, and, nodding to Richard, kicked the door open.  
“Detroit Police, nobody moves!”

After the arrest Gavin was sitting near the door to the house on a border stone, not taking his eyes from Richard’s arm; the whole left side of his jacket was covered in thirium spreading over the white fabric in a blue stain. He couldn’t stop thinking about how he almost got a bullet in his head and his brain nearly ended up as a gray blot on the dirty wall.  
Gavin tried not to think about it but every time got back to the moment the shot came, which made his stomach twist. He had been serving at the police for 15 years, yet still death had never whizzed in his ears and never floated before his eyes in blue drops of thirium.  
Gavin didn’t want to admit it to himself to the end, but he’d been so scared for the toaster he could barely held his gun in his hands.

The four men in the living room, two of them standing near the crates full with thirium, had taken off running right as Gavin had entered the house. The one closest to the exit had pulled a gun from underneath his shirt but Gavin had put his gun on him and shot through his shoulder, making the man shout from the piercing pain. A young guy standing behind had dashed over to the kitchen door in fear.  
Two men frozen in place had exchanged glances and put their hands up.  
While Gavin had been holding the two at gunpoint Richard had pushed with his foot the gun the wounded one had reached to, and flinched as he’d seen movement. One of those who had been standing with their hands up had hidden behind his scared partner’s back; he’d pulled his weapon and pointed it at Gavin who had fired a few shots at the man served as a shield.  
When the gun had been pointed at Gavin he knew he couldn’t dodge the bullet. But Richard had covered him with his body.  
Then Connor, holding the guy who tried to escape at gunpoint, and Hank, pointing his gun at the criminals, had burst into the house.

“You’re not going to kick the bucket here, huh?” Breathed in smoke and pointed with his cigarette glowing in the dark at the nonworking left arm hanging as a reminder of his mistake that nearly cost him his life and… what was it for androids? functioning?

“I’ve cut off thirium supply for it.” Richard was sitting next, looking at a few police cars arrived. He looked like nothing worth at least worrying happened (Gavin wasn’t worried, he was just twisting nervously his cigarette burning down and tapping it with his finger sharply, ashing it).

“Go to CyberLife right now.” Gavin put out his cigarette on the ground. “Let them… I don’t know… infuse thirium? I haven’t bought that thirium bar so I have nothing to infuse you, and using smuggled goods is sort of illegal. Anyway, I don’t have another cyber arm lying around in my trunk.”

“I won’t go to CyberLife,” Richard’s calm voice made a contrast with Reed’s voice full of unconcealed concern (no, it wasn’t).

“Your contacts have been damaged after all, huh?” Gavin sniffled, turning to face the android.

“Are you worried about me, Detective?” The corners of the android’s mouth lifted up slightly.

“I don’t give a shit about you!” Gavin tousled his hair, biting his lip and staring at his boots with drops of thirium on them. “Why the hell you… why the hell you got to cover me? You could’ve died yourself if the bullet hit this… what’s it called… biocomponent.”

“Your life appeared to be the most priority.”

“Oh yeah? Seventy-eight percent made its difference in the end?” A painful grin slid on his lips.

“I don’t know the percentages.”

Gavin raised his head, noticing confusion in the narrowed gray eyes looking at the criminalists gathered outside the house; wrinkles appeared on the android’s brow and his LED stroke the eye with dim yellow light. While being so uncharacteristically lost Richard seemed kind of… Reed swallowed, feeling his palms sweating and his head starting to pound.

“The perfect CyberLife android has caught a virus and forgot to calculate the chances?”

“I didn’t need to calculate. I just… did it.”

Gavin pulled him closer by the collar of his black shirt in helpless fury.  
“You’re just a fucking piece of shit,” Reed whispered into the android’s closed lips, clenching the fabric. “I would’ve made it without your help.” Gavin looked in the eyes glittering frantically as Richard drew closer, nearly touching his cheek with his nose and twisting his lips in a sly smile that knocked the wind out of Gavin.

“Why can’t you just say you were worried about me?” Richard asked just as quietly, scorching his lips with whisper and putting his working hand on Reed’s forearm; Gavin’s insides twisted traitorously and his pulse beat the alarm in his ears.

“This is not what Fowler meant when he wanted you to pull together.” Hank, approached, looked at them skeptically.

“God, for fuck’s sake!” Gavin flinched, straightened up and pulled away from the android piercing Anderson, smirking, with a heavy look.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“What the hell do you want?” Gavin reached for another cigarette, rolling down the wheel nervously and fighting with the yearning down his stomach.  
Freaking android. What the fuck was that?

“Came to see if you’re still alive.” Hank looked carefully at the android’s left arm. “Can you fix it?”  
Richard nodded reluctantly.

“He doesn’t want to go to CyberLife.” Gavin put the lighter in his jacket pocket and rested his elbows on his knees. “It seems there is more damage to the system than we can see.”

“Detective Reed, the only thing damaged here is your head.”

Gavin snorted, holding the cigarette between his teeth and trying to suppress obsession chaining his heart with shiver because of the android’s proximity.

“Is everything all right here?” Connor, reported to the criminal group about what happened, emerged from around the corner. “If you don’t want to go to CyberLife you can ask my… friend.” Hank raised his eyes to the clear, dark sky with no clouds and stamped his foot nervously, wishing the ground split apart under him. “He can help with repair.”

“And your friend has a cyber arm in store?” Gavin said incredulously, glancing at Hank breathing heavily and barely keeping himself from cutting remarks.

“This asshole has everything,” Anderson couldn’t resist eventually, spitting on the ground.

Connor shook his head reproachfully, clearly not pleased with the lieutenant’s reaction, and leaned to Richard scowling, scanning his damaged arm. “Yes, he has this detail in store.”

“It’s none of my business,” Gavin pulled the cigarette from his mouth, “but you do know that selling android parts at the black market is illegal?”

“Of course,” Connor nodded, straightening up. “This law was enacted on the March, 14 after the raid on the factory–”

“At the south of Detroit, I know.”

“Did you study on the android information?” Hank wondered, adjusting his coat collar.

“Yeah, at Friday.” Reed squinted at the android trying to compress his broken part. “An unscheduled lecture. Fuck, you distracted me. My point was that if you,” Gavin pointed with the burning end of his cigarette at Connor bowing his head in attention, “keep company with someone from–”

“I don’t know any smugglers, Detective.” Connor blinked, pulling a long face, confused.

“Then I don’t get a shit. Your friend is from CyberLife?”

“He retired from business a few years ago, but now he actively cooperate with the company.”

“A programmer, you mean?” Gavin snorted, having a drag on his cigarette.

“Former Director, Mister Kamski,” Connor said as a matter of fact.

Gavin choked on the smoke, started coughing and almost spit out his lungs.

“What?!” The cigarette swung and nearly fell from his unclenched fingers. “The creator of the androids?! How do you know him? You– wait a second,” Gavin put out the cigarette (poked it into the ground ten times until it shriveled to the size of a leech embryo), “as… Elijah?” Gavin’s eyes widened from the wild guess washing over him, striking him in the back of his neck with a baseball and hitting him with a bat to fix the result. “As _at seven today_ and the red hearts?” in a strained whisper threatening to get into scream.

Connor lowered his eyes and nodded, embarrassed.  
Hank spitted out one more time.

“No fucking way,” Gavin said and rubbed his nose. “No fucking way,” said it again to confirm his verdict.

* * *

Gavin was sitting at his desk, boots up on it, and twisting the Rubik’s Cube. He could’ve looked for the solving scheme long ago at his terminal but he ignored it. After all, couldn’t he solve the freaking cube by _himself_? Richard’s instructions from the night before last didn’t count.

After the arrest Fowler (a holy man!) gave a day off to all the officers who took part in the raid and sent Richard to recovery (to Elijah Kamski — Gavin still couldn’t fucking believe it but silently now, without drawing attention).  
And the next day he made them write the reports.

Richard who came to work this day with his new arm (Reed didn’t stare at him, not at all; he didn’t give a damn about him, and his heart beginning to pound as the android came in sight meant nothing, he just drank too much coffee) was sitting in front of him, looking through the cases accumulated during their absence.

“You’re moving the top side wrong.”

“I can figure it out without you.”

“Figure the report out first.”

“Reed! Richard!” Fowler came from his office. “To my office!”

Hank passing by, just came to work, said nonchalantly, “Well, brace yourselves in advance.”

“Hank!” Fowler’s enraged voice rolled. “Why the hell are you late again?!”

Hank tsked, feeling Connor’s reproachful gaze at his back.

Gavin got his feet off the desk, giving an encouraging (no) smack at Anderson’s shoulder, and followed Richard to the captain’s office; put the cube in front of the terminal before that.

“You called, Captain?” Gavin closed the door behind him. He sincerely hoped this call to the captain’s office wouldn’t bring any news on them that would make him want to put his head in the noose or drown in an ice hole (Fowler was a holy man so he wouldn’t allow that anyway).

Fowler rested his elbows on his desk and looked upon the android and the detective standing next to each other. “Right to the business.” Fowler scratched his neck. “There is a request for transfer to the West Station. Richard, the order requires you.”

“What do you mean? But we like… work together?” Gavin, standing loosely until now, straightened.

“They got staff changes at the West Station, the crime rate is raising.”

“Well, that’s their problem, so they got to deal with it.”

“An order.” Fowler spread his hands.

“To hell with this order,” Gavin snorted.

“Enough of your insubordination, Reed!” Fowler slammed the desk with his fist, making stationery in the desk organizer jump. “And what do you mean to hell with the order?! Are you out of your mind?! And you both,” pointed at each with his finger, “first you yell you don’t want to work together, and now what?!” Fowler took a deep breath and sat back in his chair, glancing at Gavin scowling and Richard whose LED was blinking fiercely. “You can refuse,” addressing the android now.

“No,” Richard answered, getting a hold over his LED. “I am willing to be transferred to another station.”

Gavin froze, staring in shock in front of him.

“Then go to the West Station right now. They are losing it there already. You’re free to go.”

Reed stormed out of the office, slamming the door before the android who managed to hold it before it could smash his nose. He came to his desk and pulled his jacket off the back of his chair, nearly knocking it over, and headed to the exit, fumbling into his pocket, looking for cigarettes and the lighter.

Standing outside in the sunlight, Gavin took a drag on his cigarette and looked into the distance. His hand was shaking and his eyes were darting chaotically while his insides were torn apart by the hurt feeling the detective couldn’t cope with; it was devouring him, dipping him into some sort of hot water hole, not letting him breathe properly.  
Fowler could take his halo from the shelf since they fucking pulled together (at least that was what Gavin thought, exhaling smoke, but there was no telling what was happening in Richard’s head-program). He didn’t want to nail the CyberLife toaster to the wall (sometimes he did, but much less often than almost a month ago). This fact alone could be counted as a step forward in their relationship.  
_Partner relationship_ , Reed corrected himself, remembering how the thoughts in his head got into a mess when the freaking android’s lips almost touched his.  
_There’s no fucking relationship at all,_ Reed corrected again, noticing Richard walking out of the police station with not a single emotion on his stony face.

“Just leaving like that, huh?” Reed breathed out smoke in the face of the android approached, barely keeping himself from punching him in the face.

“I’ve got the permission from Fowler. The address I must go to–”

“Then fucking go, what are you standing here for.” Gavin pushed him in his chest with all his strength but the android didn’t move. “Go on, plastic, leave.”

“Detective–”

“Get the fuck outta here!”

Gavin threw the cigarette into a trashcan nearby with a snap of his fingers and went back to the station, pushing the android. Going through the entry gate, he nearly ripped out a glass door that was opening way too slowly.

He was doing fine on his own, without any partners, and then he got an android who pissed the fuck off him, annoyed him just by his presence alone and constant morals, making him want to smash the glass in the interrogation room with his stupid face. Fucking Richard was driving him mad but Gavin had never hated him enough to actually put a bullet in his head or push him under a train (they were catching a criminal on the railway once so Gavin had a real chance). This whole damn month, because of which he didn’t just get his head spinning, but also his whole life switched hemispheres, enough to make him want to throw himself into the fire or dig himself a grave, was definitely the worst in his fucking life.

Gavin felt so shitty the only thing he could think of while sitting in front of the terminal was a freaking bottle (bottles) of beer he would buy on his way home — or something stronger, and whatever if he had to go to work the next day, it won’t hurt Fowler.  
Gavin wished the fucking android didn’t make it to the West Side, imagining him being hit by a truck or an empty school bus the driver lost control of.

Reed looked at the half-solved cube and couldn’t lift his hand to throw it in the trashcan under the desk.

“And where’s yours?” Anderson asked in the interrogation room while Connor was sitting in front of the criminal they arrested the night before last, asking questions.

“Gone.”

“You actually managed to drive him crazy? Well done, Reed, you learned how to knock androids out of service.”

Gavin snorted, leaning against the wall with his arms folded on his chest and staring at the silent interrogatee’s back. “We received an order. There’s some shit going on with staff at the West Station. Well, and this prick got transferred to them.”

“Transferred how?” Hank even turned to him in surprise.

“Well, he’s a fucking machine.” Gavin shrugged. “Does only what he’s told.”

“But the day before yesterday he–”

“Whatever.” Gavin lowered his head and smirked, lost. “At least he won’t be such a pain in my ass. I’m fucking happy this dipshit is gone.”

“I can see that.” Hank casted a sad glance at him and turned to Connor. “You know, you’re just getting on me with this. Just say you don’t want him to be transferred. Like you’re gonna choke while sa–”

“Hey, Anderson, you lost your hearing at the shouting? I said I don’t give a fuck, so be a good boy and piss off.”

“And what if I don’t? Will continue nagging on yourself?”

“Don’t give me a fucking psychology lecture, I’ve had enough of this shit with Fowler!” Gavin pushed himself from the wall, clenching his hands into fists; Hank didn’t pay him any attention, watching at the arrested man who still hadn’t said a word, ignoring all Connor’s attempts to make him talk.

“You could use one since you don’t seem to know that people usually talk about what bothers th–”  
Reed left the interrogation room, slamming the door behind him.

There was some charm in writing the reports — you couldn’t think about anything else while doing it. And if Reed did cast glances at the empty desk in front of him it was only to turn his tired eyes off the terminal.

“You look like you’ve walked around the globe twenty times on foot.” Tina came to him on her way out of the station.

“Fucking awesome.”

Tina sighed, adjusting the bag on her shoulder. “It’s Thursday tomorrow, we have to be at work by eight, and I had an awful day, so how about we go and get drunk?”

Gavin rubbed his eyes tired from the terminal, squinting at her suspiciously. “Do I look that bad?”

“Three out of five.”

Despite Wednesday being the middle of a week the bar wasn’t empty; more than a half of the tables were occupied. The smell of booze hit the nose right at the entrance, the dim light wasn’t blinding. Reed and Chen ordered straight a few glasses of beer and sat in the corner where they could talk, not bothered by the music from the speakers.

“So what about that awful day of yours?” Gavin took a glass, draining half of it at once.

“Oh no, I’m not willing to talk about it until I’m tipsy.”

“Fuck, you’re gonna drag me in some shit again.” He glanced suspiciously at Tina who was smiling kindly, looking at him. “Our last time drinking ended up with me spending the night on the street.”

“On a bench, mind you. And if I’m not mistaken at the North Side.” Tina took a few gulps, shaking her head in time with the music. “Where a patrol officer woke you up.”

“That dipshit apologized to the superior officer afterwards.”

“I thought it was you asking him not to give you a ticket?”

“I was threatening him.”

Tina chuckled, putting her glass down with a thud. “So what happened?”

“What? Are we talking serious already? What the hell?”

“Bring it on, Reed. You haven’t had an expression like this since Richard was assigned to you.”

“Well, first he was assigned, now he’s reassigned. See, I’m fucking happy.” Gavin reached for a second glass; he wanted to get drunk anyway, there wasn’t much difference whether to do it at home or at the bar.

“Oh yeah.” Tina raised one eyebrow incredulously and sat back. “So happy you’re draining a second glass?”

“I’m celebrating.” He lifted up his glass, saluting. “He’s finally out of my sight, I’m sick of this piece of shit already.”

Gavin’s opinion changed half an hour later.

“He just fucking left. Just fucking came to me near the entrance and _I’ve got the permission from Frow– Flow– Fowler, going there_. Who the fuck does that? Fucking machine, brings nothing but troubles. First he pisses you off that much your hands are itching to punch him, then he pisses you off less and you even start to worry about him just to hear _well, I’m off_ in the end. Just what the fuck?”

“I knew you two got along.” Tina was sitting back on the couch with her legs crossed, holding the half-empty first glass.

“We didn’t fucking get along.” Gavin took a sip. “Okay, we did. Somehow. A little. Whatever. He still obeyed the order and fucking left.”

“And you said nothing?”

“Told him to fuck off.”

Tina sighed heavily, smoothing down her tousled hair. “If I hadn’t known you for years, would’ve told you to fuck off long ago. Reed, you’re being a jackass. I mean you always are,” wrinkled her nose, “but now you’re taking it on a next level.”

“And what was I supposed to do? Wish him not to lose any bolts on his way?”

“Tell him you wanna work with him? Does he even know it?”

“He’s a fucking machine, he doesn’t give a shit who to work with.”

“But you’re the only one he got on with. Reed, for fuck’s sake. He ignores half of the station and keeps contact with the other just to imitate social relations.”

“Like with that… what’s her name… the new one.”

“Trisha?” Tina put a finger to her mouth in thought. “She’s been working with us for more than a month, I doubt she still counts as new.”

“Smiles like a rooster during the mating season.” Gavin felt sick not because of the alcohol he drank but because of the memories of fucking Richard. And of how that fucking android was smirking to him. He made a wry face and had another sip.

“Roosters don’t–” Glow appeared in Chen’s eyes, mischievous smile bloomed on her face, making Gavin want to get as far away as possible. “You, Gavin Reed, are jealous.”

Gavin nearly choked. “Did you drink too much?”

“Telling me something about androids while you actually fell for Richard? That’s clinical, Reed.”

“Our station is clinical.” Gavin put his glass on the table, wiping his chin; sweet emptiness settled in his head, so admitting, “Well, I fell for him, so what?” appeared to be much easier than while being sober when hundreds of prejudices mixed with his stubbornness were building barricades. “He left, Tina. It’s over.”

“Do you have his numbe–”

“Hell no, I know this shit.” Gavin leaned his hand against the table as Chen’s face started to blur alongside with the bar in tune with the music coming from the speakers. “I turned off my phone before coming in here. I’m a fucking detective, not a teenager in love.”

“Don’t know about that.”

“What are you doing?” Reed asked when Tina pulled her phone out of her pocket.

“Calling Matt. I don’t want you to spend another night on a bench.”

* * *

The next day Reed came back to work with a headache and being one hour late but Fowler either closed his eyes to it or hadn’t opened them at all, nearly sleeping at his desk because of the reports needed after the inspection (at least the ficus was watered and overall happy — unlike its owner).

Gavin dropped into the chair that became close to his heart already and kicked his boots up on the table, taking a pill before his buzzing head exploded right at the station. The previous day Tina got him into the car to ~~an android~~ Matt who she’d been dating for a couple of weeks already and helped him to get home (Reed could stand on his legs but didn’t trust himself to do this).  
Reed casted a glance at ~~the transferred officer~~ Trisha sitting at the opposite end of the station and looking through reports with sad eyes. He looked at the empty desk in front of him, remembered his _well, I fell for him_ from yesterday, and his head exploding stopped seeming that terrible.

Gavin was fucked.

At lunch, when there was nothing else to do, Gavin was hanging at the cafeteria, leaning against the table and looking at the TV broadcasting news; it spoke about a new vaccine being created, meeting of the presidents of Brazil and China, and also about an interview with the android representative’s associate and a journalist that went in a friendly environment (no water decanters were hurt).

Connor who came to the cafeteria to ask Reed to hand him over data considering the arrest offered him the tablet. There was no need to ask a psychic (yes, those were still around) to see how Connor, striving to snoop where no one ever asked him to, was barely keeping himself from starting a conversation about RK900. “I don’t understand why–”

“Don’t start, or I’ll stick this tablet into your mouth, got it?”

“Elijah said–”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Gavin groaned, not getting the password right from the first try.

“–he had a high software instability rate.”

“I don’t give a fuck about his instabilities.”

“Detective Reed, my sensors are telling that you’re lying.”

“Then replace them!” Gavin shoved the tablet to his chest. “Is it inheriting from model to model in you?”

“What exactly?”

“Scanning everyone you see!”

“I apologize.” Connor lowered his gaze and then a sound came in a moment, notifying about a new message.

“Stick your apologies up your ass, if you have where to stick. Just shut up,” he interrupted Connor who opened his mouth. “I don’t fucking wanna know if you do.” Gavin pushed himself from the table, and on his way out of the cafeteria his gaze stumbled upon Hank who had not a dark cloud hovering over him but a passive-aggressive hurricane. “And one more thing, dipshit.” Connor turned to him. “Put your phone on silent before Anderson had a heart attack from your love letters.”

When Gavin was coming to his desk, he heard a loud _yes!_ resounding across the whole station — soft-hearted Hank sent poor Chris a link to downloading mods for the video game without any viruses.

Gavin kicked his boots up on the desk, took the Rubik’s Cube sitting on it all this time and started to twist sides. It distracted him from all this shit he was better not think about.

Speaking about shit.  
Reed nearly dropped the cube as Richard walked past him, paying him no attention, and headed straight to Fowler’s office. Gavin, fighting with an urge to get up and punch his face (well, why not, he wasn’t his colleague anymore, so restriction for fighting at work didn’t affect him — actually, it was forbidden to put up fights at the police station in general, but when did it stop Reed?), remained at his place in the end, watching at the action behind the glass wall of the captain’s office.  
Richard nodded and left the office.  
The cube captured Gavin’s attention once again.

The android came to his desk and stood in front of him.

“And what the hell are you doing here? Lost your bolts, came to pick them up?”

“I refused being transferred.”

Gavin laughed, turning the solved white side. “And I’m the Queen of England.”

“You’re not the Queen of England.”

“Well, and you couldn’t refuse being transferred.” Gavin twisted the side with a blue piece in the center. “It’s an order, dumbass. Just get the hell out and don’t keep me from working.”

“You’re not working, you’re solving the cube.” Richard looked closer. “And you’re doing it wrong.” Gavin’s hands flinched. “And I did refuse.”

“CyberLife withdrew their order? Well done, obedient doggy. Now bark.”

“It’s my decision, Detective Reed. The same one as when I kissed you and covered you from the bullet.”

The cube feel out of Gavin’s hands, landing on his jeans. He rose abruptly, putting the cube on the desk with a thud and pulling Richard close by his jacket collar. “Why don’t you yell, shithead.”

Richard smirked. Impudently, boldly, the way he’d never smiled before, making Reed’s eye twitch and his heart drop to his stomach. “I can yell.”

Gavin shuddered (‘cause he really could). He gripped the android by his elbow and dragged him along from the station and to the archive where the only living creatures left were the spider family in the corner.  
He closed the door behind them, trying to do it as careful as possible, because the last thing he needed was folders falling like an avalanche; he failed, though — Gavin was shaking with fury, indignation and one other thing making his head spinning. He turned on the dim light.

“Your wires got messy?” he asked, turning to face the android standing too close to him.

“My wires can’t get messy.”

“Why the hell you came back? You were assigned–”

“How many times do I have to tell you for you to realize I refused?” Richard ran his hand through his hair, closing his eyes in silent anger — Gavin forgot how to breath.

“But you can’t do that. You told me you automatically comply any orders from the department or CyberLife.”

Richard moved closer, pushing him to the wall. “Not anymore.”

Reed, while trying his best to pull away and escape the touch, hit the light switch with his head. “Gone deviant, huh?”

The light went off.

“Maybe.”

Gavin broke into almost hysterical laugh somewhere on the edge of insanity, trying to push the android away.

“You son of a bitch.” Richard grasped his hand and squeezed his palm. “It was here you told me you’d never become deviant. Fucking great job the company did with enhancing security. What happened, toaster?” Gavin jerked up, raising his eyes and seeing only the LED gleaming with different colors in the dark. “Didn’t like it at the new station?”

“No.”

“The payment was shit? Well, of course, that’s not the Central Stati–”

“You weren’t there.”

Gavin fell silent mid-sentence, his eyes wide opened in shock. A warm wave came through his body, almost making his legs give way traitorously, and dissolved around his chest. His head filled with noise hitting like a gusting wind blow, making all thoughts split into atoms.  
He breathed in quietly, trying to cope with overwhelming feelings, and closed his eyes tight as the words said by the android ran through his veins.  
This fucking…

“Your heartbeat is rapid and you’re breathing hard,” Richard said into his open lips, putting his free hand onto Gavin’s shuddered neck.

“That’s because I hate you.”  
Gavin pressed his lips against Richard’s fiercely, pulling at his lower lip and entering the dry mouth with his tongue, stroking Richard’s rough tongue and cheeks. He clenched the white fabric of the jacket with his fingers, pulling the android closer desperately, impulsively, letting him lean heavily on himself and press his thighs against his to the moan muffled by the kiss.

Gavin breathed out loudly, shuddering slightly, as Richard’s tongue slid into his mouth, causing the tingling at the bottom of his stomach and making his toes clench and his knees grow cold. Richard licked his gums and teeth, got further, making him close his eyes tight, draw forward and give up the lead.

Richard’s hand went further up his neck, his fingers gripped his hair, not letting to pull away and take a breath when Gavin felt burning in his chest and claws scratching at his lungs. Richard pulled at his hair, watching his pupils darting under the eyelids, his brow furrowing and red spots spreading on Gavin’s cheeks, neck and ears.

Gavin was melting, dissolving, and setting on fire from every touch on his flushing neck, every move of the rough tongue in his own hot mouth. Gavin felt like he got down to his personal blazing hell, to his personal devil squishing his lips painfully.  
Richard watched, remembered, recorded how frantically Gavin was clinging to him, losing all his arrogance and forgetting about his pride, how he was reaching to him and how was reacting to the feverish touches of his shaking hands; half of Richard’s settings went down alongside with the system, sending an alarm sound to his ears that he turned off instantly.

Richard pulled away from Gavin’s lips when Gavin’s head began buzzing, licked the left corner of his mouth, catching loud breaths. Gavin leaned his head against the wall, his darkened, clouded with hot fog eyes glittering, and looked at him frozen, fascinated, with blurry, lost eyes, trying to catch his breath.

“Fucking hell, you trying to fucking kill me?” Gavin swallowed loudly, saying it in a hoarse, low voice, and licked his bitten lips.  
Richard’s glowing red LED nearly exploded.

He pushed Reed against the wall, putting his knee between his legs and spreading them to a quiet, muffled moan that echoed from the walls of close, stuffy room. Gavin pressed his nose against Richard’s neck, taking a deep breath and biting the white jacket collar as the android’s hand grasped his ass and his lips, wet after dirty kisses, slid along his salty neck.

Richard pressed his knee harder on his groin, sending stinging shock through his body.

“Fuck, toaster,” Gavin drawled in a cracking voice. He lifted up his head hotly, letting the android bite his chin and get to his jolted Adam’s apple and lick it.  
Gavin raised his shaking hands and pulled Richard’s head back, then raised himself on his barely keeping him legs to run his tongue across Richard’s open lips and kiss him, drowning in the hot burst of feelings again.

Gavin was lost, drowning and unable to rise to the surface, being tearing apart by his own emotions; fucking android, Jesus fucking Christ.  
He’d just admitted the day before that he fell for him, and now this bastard was pulling at the lobe of his ear with his teeth and nuzzling at his ear.

The tension down his stomach was knotting tight, making him thrust against Richard’s knee embarrassingly and look away from the consuming, devouring glass eyes with dark madness splashing at the bottom.

_He would never fall so low to build a relationship with an android._  
Gavin, you fucked up.

 _You fucked up, Gavin_ , he thought, succumbing to the android’s hands that made him burn from the touches and lips, letting him bite, lick and leave fucking hickeys on his neck.

“Detective.” Richard put his hand on Gavin’s glowing cheek, making him face him, and pressed his forehead against his sweating temple, closing his wild eyes.

Gavin felt cold plastic standing in stark contrast to familiar feeling of the android’s skin, and lowered his gaze, which got accustomed to the darkness, to Richard’s hand.

Gavin was blown away.

Richard was touching him with white, naked plastic, skin removed.  
The warm feeling wrapped Gavin from head to toes, making his heart pound, breaking into soft pieces and falling into his fogged mind.

Gavin thought he would die right there, just like that, because Richard, fucking Richard continued pressing against his temple, beaconing his red LED gone crazy and _not covering_ his hand with skin.

Fucking hell.

Gavin bit his lip, hurt enough as it was, pulled submitted Richard closer, held him tight, clenching the fabric at his back in his fists, and breathed out loud, brokenly, unable to cope with emotions hitting him.

“I fucking ha–“ Gavin whispered and shut one eye as the android’s knee was pressed harder against his groin, making his fingertips shake frantically.

“Are you trying to say that you’re crazy about me?”

“I’m trying to sa–“

The Chekhov’s Gun must be fired.

The old cabinet with its doors missing, supported by prayers alone (by the folder alone) at the far end of the archive went askew and fell over to the floor, breaking to splinters and sending pile of papers, folders, documents flying up to the ceiling, to the stars. By some miracle it didn’t knock over the racks next to it, but it alone was enough to cause a disruption compared to the aftermath of the android revolution.

The noise must’ve been heard by at least half of the station.

“Well, fucking awesome,” Reed exhaled into Richard’s neck, closing his eyes helplessly.

Fuck.

“I told you,” Richard bit his ear, making Gavin scowl and greet his teeth, “it would fall.”

* * *

Jeffrey Fowler was a holy man.

He had never drove against the lights, paid his taxes diligently, didn’t take bribes, and had been a Detroit Police Department captain for decades already.

He had always cared about his colleagues and the situation at the station because ever since his graduation he thought that great impact on the working process could be made by _the_ _atmosphere_.

The atmosphere at the station wasn’t all great but at least it was a working one.

In the end, a halo did appear over the captain’s head.  
And it wasn’t all for nothing.

He didn’t kick Reed and RK900 out (they were the ones who brought order to the archive, and they were the ones who killed it) but just sent them to a week-long investigation in another city with no money for a living, food and gas.

Gavin was sitting at the driver’s seat while Richard wasn’t taking his eyes from the road. The cube’s faces were twisted skillfully by his trained hands until the last piece took its place to _Infra Red_ playing on the radio.  
It took Reed five seconds to realize — he solved it.

“Hey, I…” The android turned to him. “Richard, I solved this shit.” And threw the cube to the shocked android who not only didn’t catch it but also continued sitting and not moving while his LED was changing its color from yellow to red. “You broken or what? Hey? Well, yeah, I solved it, what’s so surprising? Fuck, Richard! CyberLife is in one day of road from here. So is Kamski, so you better come to life or whatever you do when this thing of yours is flashing. Richard?!”

The solved Rubik’s Cube was lying around in the car.


End file.
